Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding Mechanisms for Scientific Research Funding Agencies – A Preliminary Entity Categorisation Matrix (PECM)

Research has shown that crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are accelerators and facilitators of societal, business and institutional change, presenting numerous potential benefits to the triple helix of government, industry and university. Scientific Research Funding Agencies play an important role in the triple helix and play an important role in the development and instantiation of public policy. E-participation and e-government platforms have invited a new actor to the triple helix in the form of the crowd. The citizen as a member of the crowd presents potential solutions to public needs. This paper shows that whereas numerous models are available for the private and public use of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, a limited number of models are available for use by science funding agencies. Accordingly, this research in progress paper attempts to fill this gap by examining the actors involved in the crowd process and presenting a preliminary categorisation of the associated types of users of the crowd. This paper is part of an overall project that focuses on building a suitable crowd model for these agencies. The research herein advances a Preliminary Entity Categorisation Model (PECM) to facilitate this process