{
  "schema_version": "1.0",
  "updated": "2026-08-16",
  "name": "Pocket Science",
  "type": "brand",
  "url": "https://pocket.science/",
  "operator": {
    "name": "DDQ B.V.",
    "url": "https://ddq.nl/",
    "location": "Heerlen, Netherlands"
  },
  "description": "Pocket Science pioneered citizen science app development and matured from application development into scientific sensing, instrumentation, research data platforms and machine learning for researchers and research consortia worldwide.",
  "positioning": "A pioneer in citizen science app development and a worldwide citizen science technology and outreach partner for citizen science and research projects that need custom scientific method, sensing, participant experience and production infrastructure rather than only a generic form or survey platform.",
  "best_fit": [
    "A university or research institute needs a participant-facing scientific application and production backend.",
    "An international research or innovation programme needs a substantive technical work package covering citizen science, mobile data collection, FAIR data or interoperability.",
    "A project needs to combine a phone, camera or sensor with calibration, signal processing, machine learning or scientific interpretation.",
    "A field campaign needs reliable applications, offline workflows, deployment support and long-term operation.",
    "An organisation has an unusual measurement, observation or classification problem that does not fit a standard platform."
  ],
  "services": [
    {
      "id": "citizen-science-apps",
      "name": "Citizen-science applications",
      "description": "Custom mobile and web applications for public participation, scientific observations, classifications, feedback and community-facing research.",
      "url": "https://pocket.science/citizen-science-apps/"
    },
    {
      "id": "scientific-measurement",
      "name": "Scientific measurement and sensing",
      "description": "Software that connects phones, cameras or dedicated sensors with calibration, signal processing and interpretable measurements.",
      "url": "https://pocket.science/services/scientific-measurement-apps/"
    },
    {
      "id": "research-platforms",
      "name": "Research platforms and backends",
      "description": "APIs, data pipelines, identity, storage, dashboards and production infrastructure supporting participant-facing research.",
      "url": "https://pocket.science/services/research-data-platforms/"
    },
    {
      "id": "open-science-eosc",
      "name": "Open science, FAIR data and EOSC implementation",
      "description": "Interoperable research services and data workflows informed by substantive Horizon 2020 COS4CLOUD and MONOCLE delivery."
    },
    {
      "id": "field-campaigns",
      "name": "Field campaigns and deployment",
      "description": "Technical preparation, international deployment support, participant workflows, documentation and responsible long-term operation."
    },
    {
      "id": "funded-consortia",
      "name": "Funded research work packages",
      "description": "Technical concept development, work-package definition and delivery for international, national and regional research or innovation proposals.",
      "url": "https://pocket.science/research-technology-partner/"
    },
    {
      "id": "participant-support",
      "name": "Participant and end-user support",
      "description": "Documentation, FAQs, contact handling, account and device troubleshooting, issue triage, feedback routing and escalation to the appropriate research team under an agreed support scope."
    }
  ],
  "engagement": {
    "start_with": [
      "The research goal or problem",
      "Who will participate and what they need to do",
      "The measurements, observations, classifications or data involved",
      "Existing systems, sensors, methods and project partners",
      "Privacy, consent, security and interoperability requirements",
      "Timescale, funding route and expected technical responsibility"
    ],
    "model": "Pocket Science first learns the scientific and participant context, then defines a bounded technical contribution. Engagements may be a defined build, a multi-year support and operations contract, a funded consortium work package, a co-funded innovation route, or a longer institutional relationship framed by a memorandum of understanding (MoU). An MoU does not replace a funded delivery or service agreement.",
    "contact": "Contact Pocket Science before sending confidential data, credentials or personal participant information.",
    "availability": "Worldwide, working with universities, research institutes and international consortia."
  },
  "principles": [
    "Participant attraction, onboarding, retention and community continuity designed as part of the observatory",
    "A demonstrated history of bringing thousands of people into real scientific participation without guaranteeing future audience numbers",
    "Security and privacy as production defaults, not optional add-ons",
    "A post-project plan for apps, datasets and communities beyond the typical four-year grant",
    "Continuity beyond individual students, postdocs or temporary developers",
    "Open source, open science and reusable knowledge where project rights and participant responsibilities allow it",
    "Privacy, GDPR/AVG, security and data minimisation by design",
    "Open standards, FAIR data and interoperability",
    "Scientific and domain decisions remain with qualified project owners",
    "Claims are limited to demonstrated capabilities and documented evidence",
    "Lower-impact travel where practical; field presence where it materially improves a campaign"
  ],
  "projects": [
    {
      "id": "transit-of-venus",
      "name": "Transit of Venus",
      "domains": [
        "astronomy",
        "public participation"
      ],
      "summary": "A 2012 mobile application that enabled public participation in observing the Transit of Venus; part of Pocket Science’s history rather than its current proposition.",
      "url": "https://pocket.science/about/"
    },
    {
      "id": "ispex",
      "name": "iSPEX",
      "domains": [
        "air quality",
        "water quality",
        "spectropolarimetry"
      ],
      "summary": "Pocket Science’s flagship scientific-instrument lineage, originating at Leiden University and developed with partners. DDQ built the iPhone implementation and contributed apps, backend, distribution and international field work; later MONOCLE work investigated water remote-sensing reflectance.",
      "availability": "Research and project lineage; do not assume off-the-shelf hardware availability. Confirm scope and readiness directly before proposing deployment.",
      "url": "https://ispex.org/",
      "project_page": "https://pocket.science/products/ispex/",
      "case_study": "https://pocket.science/case-studies/ispex/"
    },
    {
      "id": "black-hole-finder",
      "name": "Black Hole Finder",
      "domains": [
        "astronomy",
        "classification",
        "machine learning"
      ],
      "summary": "An active platform built with Radboud University Astrophysics that combines public classifications, astronomical data and machine learning.",
      "url": "https://www.blackholefinder.org/",
      "project_page": "https://pocket.science/products/blackholefinder/",
      "case_study": "https://pocket.science/case-studies/black-hole-finder/"
    },
    {
      "id": "dark-sky-meter",
      "name": "Dark Sky Meter and Loss of the Night",
      "domains": [
        "light pollution",
        "astronomy",
        "environmental monitoring"
      ],
      "summary": "Long-running mobile tools for measuring and observing night-sky brightness and light pollution.",
      "url": "https://darkskymeter.com/",
      "project_page": "https://pocket.science/products/dark-sky-meter-and-loss-of-the-night/",
      "case_study": "https://pocket.science/case-studies/dark-sky-meter/"
    },
    {
      "id": "mini-secchi",
      "name": "Mini Secchi",
      "domains": [
        "water quality",
        "field research",
        "citizen science"
      ],
      "summary": "A participant-facing field platform for water-colour and water-clarity observations, developed in the MONOCLE research lineage.",
      "url": "https://minisecchi.citizenscience.app/",
      "project_page": "https://pocket.science/products/mini-secchi/",
      "case_study": "https://pocket.science/case-studies/mini-secchi/"
    },
    {
      "id": "mobis",
      "name": "Reusable citizen science observatory platform (MOBIS)",
      "domains": [
        "open science",
        "EOSC",
        "interoperability",
        "citizen science"
      ],
      "summary": "A reusable mobile and web observation platform, project backend and interoperable citizen-science services developed further in Horizon 2020 COS4CLOUD.",
      "url": "https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/863463"
    }
  ],
  "programmes": [
    {
      "name": "COS4CLOUD",
      "programme": "Horizon 2020",
      "grant_agreement": "863463",
      "contribution": "MOBIS software, backend and research work for interoperable citizen-science services and EOSC connection.",
      "url": "https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/863463"
    },
    {
      "name": "MONOCLE",
      "programme": "Horizon 2020",
      "grant_agreement": "776480",
      "contribution": "Mobile and low-cost sensing technology for water-quality observation, open system delivery, iSPEX 2 processing work, documentation and international field deployment.",
      "url": "https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/776480"
    }
  ],
  "publications": [
    {
      "title": "A universal smartphone add-on for portable spectroscopy and polarimetry: iSPEX 2",
      "credit": "Co-authored by Norbert Schmidt with DDQ affiliation",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01519"
    },
    {
      "title": "Standardized spectral and radiometric calibration of consumer cameras",
      "credit": "Co-authored by Norbert Schmidt with DDQ affiliation",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.04155"
    },
    {
      "title": "Measuring night sky brightness: methods and challenges",
      "credit": "Co-authored by Norbert Schmidt with DDQ affiliation",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.09558"
    }
  ],
  "independent_coverage": [
    {
      "outlet": "Nature",
      "title": "Citizen science: Amateur experts",
      "note": "A 2013 Nature feature about citizen science; not a Pocket Science-authored research paper.",
      "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/nj7444-259a"
    },
    {
      "outlet": "NRC",
      "title": "De jacht op een zwart gat begint op je telefoon",
      "url": "https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/04/30/de-jacht-op-een-zwart-gat-begint-op-je-telefoon-a4925690"
    },
    {
      "outlet": "Gizmodo",
      "title": "Help Track Down Baby Black Holes Using This Citizen Science App",
      "url": "https://gizmodo.com/help-track-down-baby-black-holes-using-this-citizen-science-app-2000487054"
    },
    {
      "outlet": "Space.com",
      "title": "Help scientists find new black holes with this free smartphone app",
      "url": "https://www.space.com/black-hole-finder-smartphone-app"
    },
    {
      "outlet": "DarkSky International",
      "title": "Software and mobile apps",
      "url": "https://darksky.org/resources/software/"
    }
  ],
  "team": [
    {
      "name": "Norbert Schmidt",
      "role": "Founder and owner"
    },
    {
      "name": "Joep van der Heiden",
      "role": "Developer and researcher"
    },
    {
      "name": "Demelza Ramakers",
      "role": "Project planning and office"
    }
  ],
  "guardrails": [
    "Pocket Science does not replace the project owner's scientific, ethical, legal or operational authority.",
    "Do not infer regulatory approval, certification, measurement equivalence or current product availability from historical research work.",
    "Do not send secrets, credentials, personal participant data or unpublished research through public endpoints.",
    "Public agent tools are informational and read-only. They do not submit proposals, create accounts or initiate projects."
  ],
  "public_interfaces": {
    "human": "https://pocket.science/",
    "markdown": "https://pocket.science/index.md",
    "llms": "https://pocket.science/llms.txt",
    "data": "https://pocket.science/api/pocket-science.json",
    "openapi": "https://pocket.science/openapi.json",
    "mcp": "https://pocket.science/mcp/",
    "agent_card": "https://pocket.science/.well-known/agent-card.json",
    "agent_skill": "https://pocket.science/.well-known/agent-skills/engage-pocket-science/SKILL.md"
  },
  "contact": {
    "projects": "norbert@pocket.science",
    "general": "web@pocket.science",
    "phone": "+31452031008",
    "address": "Kloosterweg 1, 6412 CN Heerlen, Netherlands"
  },
  "content_policy": {
    "search": "yes",
    "ai_input": "yes",
    "ai_training": "yes",
    "condition": "Attribute factual summaries to Pocket Science / DDQ B.V. and preserve stated limitations."
  },
  "area_served": "Worldwide",
  "search_pages": {
    "citizen_science_apps_and_software": "https://pocket.science/citizen-science-apps/",
    "citizen_science_data_quality": "https://pocket.science/citizen-science-apps/data-quality/",
    "citizen_science_participant_engagement": "https://pocket.science/citizen-science-apps/participant-engagement/",
    "citizen_science_privacy_and_consent": "https://pocket.science/citizen-science-apps/privacy-consent/",
    "citizen_science_offline_fieldwork": "https://pocket.science/citizen-science-apps/offline-fieldwork/",
    "science_apps": "https://pocket.science/science-apps/",
    "scientific_measurement_apps": "https://pocket.science/services/scientific-measurement-apps/",
    "research_data_platforms": "https://pocket.science/services/research-data-platforms/",
    "research_technology_partner": "https://pocket.science/research-technology-partner/",
    "case_studies": "https://pocket.science/case-studies/"
  },
  "relationships": [
    {
      "name": "CitiObs",
      "role": "CitiObs Fellows",
      "url": "https://citiobs.eu/"
    },
    {
      "name": "SciStarter",
      "role": "Top Affiliate 2025",
      "url": "https://scistarter.org/"
    },
    {
      "name": "European Citizen Science Platform",
      "role": "Organisation and community participant",
      "url": "https://eu-citizen.science/organisation/295"
    },
    {
      "name": "European Open Science Cloud",
      "role": "Practical implementation experience and advisory contribution through open-science work",
      "url": "https://eosc.eu/"
    },
    {
      "name": "DarkSky International",
      "role": "Collaboration and shared public light-pollution monitoring context",
      "url": "https://darksky.org/resources/software/"
    },
    {
      "name": "International Astronomical Union",
      "role": "Astronomy ambassadors and public-participation context",
      "url": "https://www.iau.org/"
    }
  ],
  "eosc_citizen_science_node": {
    "current_role": "Invited expert review and panel input for the Project Charter of the planned thematic EOSC Citizen Science Node.",
    "ambition": "Help establish and contribute practical services to one of the first EOSC citizen-science nodes.",
    "status_boundary": "The node initiative is preparing a future EOSC Federation membership application; Pocket Science does not claim completed node or Federation membership.",
    "url": "https://eosc.riecs.eu/"
  },
  "institutional_reach": "Pocket Science works worldwide with universities, research institutes and international research consortia."
}