Fifth U.S. Open Government National Action Plan
Commitment Tracker

Commitment:

Encourage Greater Public Participation in Science

Full Commitment Text OGP Commitment Page

Progress for this commitment is tracked based on the following sub-commitment(s). You can also view the full text of this commitment.

US0123.0	For these reasons, the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to supporting citizen science efforts... Looking ahead, most agencies implementing prize competitions and challenges in recent years have indicated that they will continue to leverage such competitions and challenges, and the Biden-Harris Administration will commit to supporting these efforts to stimulate innovation, develop solutions to challenging problems, and advance core Administration and agency priorities.
Agency	General Services Administration
Progress	In 2023 we are seeing continued growth of the use of prize competitions as an important sourcing mechanism. Since January 19 federal agencies have launched 68 prize competitions on Challenge.Gov. These competitions have offered almost $100M in prize awards to the public. Prize competitions sponsored by cabinet level agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy make up over a third of all competitions launched this year on the Challenge.Gov platform and this indicates that agencies are scaling their use of prize competitions to engage the public in innovation. Interest among federal agencies has increased and the federal prize and challenge community of practice has expanded to over 700 members who represent prize managers and innovation leaders across government. Similarly, the catalog of projects on CitizenScience.Gov has grown to over 500 projects in 2023. Agencies including NOAA, NASA, EPA and others are seeing increased public interest and engagement with these projects that span a variety of models including community science, participatory research, and citizen science.

US0123.0

For these reasons, the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to supporting citizen science efforts... Looking ahead, most agencies implementing prize competitions and challenges in recent years have indicated that they will continue to leverage such competitions and challenges, and the Biden-Harris Administration will commit to supporting these efforts to stimulate innovation, develop solutions to challenging problems, and advance core Administration and agency priorities.

Agency

General Services Administration

Progress

In 2023 we are seeing continued growth of the use of prize competitions as an important sourcing mechanism. Since January 19 federal agencies have launched 68 prize competitions on Challenge.Gov. These competitions have offered almost $100M in prize awards to the public. Prize competitions sponsored by cabinet level agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy make up over a third of all competitions launched this year on the Challenge.Gov platform and this indicates that agencies are scaling their use of prize competitions to engage the public in innovation. Interest among federal agencies has increased and the federal prize and challenge community of practice has expanded to over 700 members who represent prize managers and innovation leaders across government.

Similarly, the catalog of projects on CitizenScience.Gov has grown to over 500 projects in 2023. Agencies including NOAA, NASA, EPA and others are seeing increased public interest and engagement with these projects that span a variety of models including community science, participatory research, and citizen science.