What happens when open-source philosophy is applied to making science tools? We are examining how a 3D-printed microscope--a paradigmatic example of open science hardware--enables researchers to ask new questions. We're especially interested in whether it can help researchers in the Global South pursue questions that are not favored under the current incentive structure.

• Learn how open science hardware can help align scientific research with social needs.

• Learn how technology transfer offices can increase the impact of academic research using open science hardware.

Scientists can tell us a lot about the environment. But what can we learn from asking ordinary people what they see? We’ve analyzed platforms that enable the people most affected by pollution to contribute their knowledge.

• Learn how pollution reports highlight gaps in environmental regulation.

• Understand the circumstances in which crowd-sourcing can be most effective.

Environmental justice activists have started monitoring programs in communities adjacent to petrochemical facilities. These empower people with information about what’s in their air, and with more knowledge about how that information is generated.

• Read about what policymakers can learn from community involvement in fenceline monitoring.

• Learn how bucket air monitors succeed by taking advantage of regulatory standards.

• Understand how regulators undermine community-led monitoring by trouble-shooting, focusing on personal choice, and missing its biggest innovations.

Renewable energy promotes environmental justice by ameliorating climate change, with its outsized impact on marginalized communities, and reducing toxic pollution from fossil fuels. But our analysis finds that renewable energy development can create its own injustices.

• Learn how state policy can prevent communities from having a say in decisions about industrial-scale wind farms.

• Understand how policy makers can better promote environmental justice with distributed generation and on-going research about the environmental and health effects of renewables.

Justice requires that people have a voice in decisions that affect them.

We look at participatory processes to see which give real weight to public input, and which just pay lip service.

• Read about the limitations of “informed choice” in siting decisions.

• Learn how engineers divide “technical” from “social” issues to sideline public participation.