Recently, the "raccoon census" project is preparing for the recruitment and training of volunteer leaders in 2025. As a typical case of public participation in science, the "raccoon census" project was carried out in the form of "citizen science" and conducted a synchronous investigation of the national second-level protected wild animals raccoons that appeared in Shanghai. Since its launch in 2022, the project has lasted for three years, and the scientific research efficiency and popular science benefits are quite significant. In 2024, the project was selected as one of the top ten citizens participating cases of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment; in 2025, the project received special funding for popular science.

　　In recent years, public participation in science has become a new form to promote interaction and communication between the scientific and technological community and the public.

　　Public participation science presents several prominent characteristics. First, multiple subjects perform their duties, work closely together, and promote scientific research efficiently. As for the "raccoon census" project, cross-industry volunteers participated in the survey under the professional guidance of the scientific research team, and completed the data collection of the traditional scientific research team's work in just 2 nights, effectively eliminating the time and space errors caused by the migration of biological groups and changes in their living conditions due to the long investigation cycle. Second, by building a multi-party equal dialogue platform, we have formed diversified consultation and governance, and enhanced the public's right to make scientific decisions. The third is to form a virtuous cycle of "policy optimization - public education - behavior change", and volunteers can promote knowledge internalization by participating in scientific practice.

　　Public participation in science has a positive impact on both the public and scientific research ends. The public has broken its own cognitive barriers to science through immersive participation in scientific research, and science has become more interesting. While reducing costs and increasing efficiency, the scientific research side has formed a demand response mechanism, which can more accurately capture the public's cognitive blind spots and interests, which is conducive to building a demand-oriented popular science supply system.

　　Since the 21st century, as a new form of popular science, public participation in science has been widely recognized and has developed and matured in the European and American scientific circles. In contrast, this form is still in its initial development stage in my country, and its application is mainly concentrated in the field of ecology, and it also has broad expansion space and development potential in the fields of astronomy, psychological cognition, etc.

　　To this end, taking the implementation of the newly revised science popularization law as an opportunity, focusing on the goal of "strengthening the construction of national science popularization capabilities and improving the scientific and cultural quality of citizens", more public participation in science projects should be promoted and the public should be informed of relevant information. It can explore the development of a scientific research crowdsourcing digital platform, where scientific research teams guide the public to participate or plan scientific research topics based on public needs. At the same time, it should be advocated to establish a guarantee system for investments such as government support, foundations or corporate sponsorship. By lowering the threshold for scientific research participation and enhancing the public's scientific research participation, we will eventually form an open scientific research and popularization ecosystem with free flow of innovative factors and multi-directional transformation of scientific values, demonstrating the contemporary value of popular science work.

　　(The author Wang Zhifang is an associate researcher at the China Institute of Popular Science)

[Editor in charge: Zhu Jiaqi]