research projects online

Education During Coronavirus

A Smithsonian magazine special report

Science | June 15, 2020

Seventy-Five Scientific Research Projects You Can Contribute to Online

From astrophysicists to entomologists, many researchers need the help of citizen scientists to sift through immense data collections

Rachael Lallensack

Former Assistant Editor, Science and Innovation

If you find yourself tired of streaming services, reading the news or video-chatting with friends, maybe you should consider becoming a citizen scientist. Though it’s true that many field research projects are paused , hundreds of scientists need your help sifting through wildlife camera footage and images of galaxies far, far away, or reading through diaries and field notes from the past.

Plenty of these tools are free and easy enough for children to use. You can look around for projects yourself on Smithsonian Institution’s citizen science volunteer page , National Geographic ’s list of projects and CitizenScience.gov ’s catalog of options. Zooniverse is a platform for online-exclusive projects , and Scistarter allows you to restrict your search with parameters, including projects you can do “on a walk,” “at night” or “on a lunch break.”

To save you some time, Smithsonian magazine has compiled a collection of dozens of projects you can take part in from home.

American Wildlife

If being home has given you more time to look at wildlife in your own backyard, whether you live in the city or the country, consider expanding your view, by helping scientists identify creatures photographed by camera traps. Improved battery life, motion sensors, high-resolution and small lenses have made camera traps indispensable tools for conservation.These cameras capture thousands of images that provide researchers with more data about ecosystems than ever before.

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s eMammal platform , for example, asks users to identify animals for conservation projects around the country. Currently, eMammal is being used by the Woodland Park Zoo ’s Seattle Urban Carnivore Project, which studies how coyotes, foxes, raccoons, bobcats and other animals coexist with people, and the Washington Wolverine Project, an effort to monitor wolverines in the face of climate change. Identify urban wildlife for the Chicago Wildlife Watch , or contribute to wilderness projects documenting North American biodiversity with The Wilds' Wildlife Watch in Ohio , Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild in Minnesota , Michigan ZoomIN , Western Montana Wildlife and Snapshot Wisconsin .

"Spend your time at home virtually exploring the Minnesota backwoods,” writes the lead researcher of the Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild project. “Help us understand deer dynamics, possum populations, bear behavior, and keep your eyes peeled for elusive wolves!"

If being cooped up at home has you daydreaming about traveling, Snapshot Safari has six active animal identification projects. Try eyeing lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, elephants, giraffes, baobab trees and over 400 bird species from camera trap photos taken in South African nature reserves, including De Hoop Nature Reserve and Madikwe Game Reserve .

With South Sudan DiversityCam , researchers are using camera traps to study biodiversity in the dense tropical forests of southwestern South Sudan. Part of the Serenegeti Lion Project, Snapshot Serengeti needs the help of citizen scientists to classify millions of camera trap images of species traveling with the wildebeest migration.

Classify all kinds of monkeys with Chimp&See . Count, identify and track giraffes in northern Kenya . Watering holes host all kinds of wildlife, but that makes the locales hotspots for parasite transmission; Parasite Safari needs volunteers to help figure out which animals come in contact with each other and during what time of year.

Mount Taranaki in New Zealand is a volcanic peak rich in native vegetation, but native wildlife, like the North Island brown kiwi, whio/blue duck and seabirds, are now rare—driven out by introduced predators like wild goats, weasels, stoats, possums and rats. Estimate predator species compared to native wildlife with Taranaki Mounga by spotting species on camera trap images.

The Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) Instant Wild app has a dozen projects showcasing live images and videos of wildlife around the world. Look for bears, wolves and lynx in Croatia ; wildcats in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula ; otters in Hampshire, England ; and both black and white rhinos in the Lewa-Borana landscape in Kenya.

Under the Sea

Researchers use a variety of technologies to learn about marine life and inform conservation efforts. Take, for example, Beluga Bits , a research project focused on determining the sex, age and pod size of beluga whales visiting the Churchill River in northern Manitoba, Canada. With a bit of training, volunteers can learn how to differentiate between a calf, a subadult (grey) or an adult (white)—and even identify individuals using scars or unique pigmentation—in underwater videos and images. Beluga Bits uses a “ beluga boat ,” which travels around the Churchill River estuary with a camera underneath it, to capture the footage and collect GPS data about the whales’ locations.

Many of these online projects are visual, but Manatee Chat needs citizen scientists who can train their ear to decipher manatee vocalizations. Researchers are hoping to learn what calls the marine mammals make and when—with enough practice you might even be able to recognize the distinct calls of individual animals.

Several groups are using drone footage to monitor seal populations. Seals spend most of their time in the water, but come ashore to breed. One group, Seal Watch , is analyzing time-lapse photography and drone images of seals in the British territory of South Georgia in the South Atlantic. A team in Antarctica captured images of Weddell seals every ten minutes while the seals were on land in spring to have their pups. The Weddell Seal Count project aims to find out what threats—like fishing and climate change—the seals face by monitoring changes in their population size. Likewise, the Año Nuevo Island - Animal Count asks volunteers to count elephant seals, sea lions, cormorants and more species on a remote research island off the coast of California.

With Floating Forests , you’ll sift through 40 years of satellite images of the ocean surface identifying kelp forests, which are foundational for marine ecosystems, providing shelter for shrimp, fish and sea urchins. A project based in southwest England, Seagrass Explorer , is investigating the decline of seagrass beds. Researchers are using baited cameras to spot commercial fish in these habitats as well as looking out for algae to study the health of these threatened ecosystems. Search for large sponges, starfish and cold-water corals on the deep seafloor in Sweden’s first marine park with the Koster seafloor observatory project.

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center needs your help spotting invasive species with Invader ID . Train your eye to spot groups of organisms, known as fouling communities, that live under docks and ship hulls, in an effort to clean up marine ecosystems.

If art history is more your speed, two Dutch art museums need volunteers to start “ fishing in the past ” by analyzing a collection of paintings dating from 1500 to 1700. Each painting features at least one fish, and an interdisciplinary research team of biologists and art historians wants you to identify the species of fish to make a clearer picture of the “role of ichthyology in the past.”

Interesting Insects

Notes from Nature is a digitization effort to make the vast resources in museums’ archives of plants and insects more accessible. Similarly, page through the University of California Berkeley’s butterfly collection on CalBug to help researchers classify these beautiful critters. The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology has already digitized about 300,000 records, but their collection exceeds 4 million bugs. You can hop in now and transcribe their grasshopper archives from the last century . Parasitic arthropods, like mosquitos and ticks, are known disease vectors; to better locate these critters, the Terrestrial Parasite Tracker project is working with 22 collections and institutions to digitize over 1.2 million specimens—and they’re 95 percent done . If you can tolerate mosquito buzzing for a prolonged period of time, the HumBug project needs volunteers to train its algorithm and develop real-time mosquito detection using acoustic monitoring devices. It’s for the greater good!

For the Birders

Birdwatching is one of the most common forms of citizen science . Seeing birds in the wilderness is certainly awe-inspiring, but you can birdwatch from your backyard or while walking down the sidewalk in big cities, too. With Cornell University’s eBird app , you can contribute to bird science at any time, anywhere. (Just be sure to remain a safe distance from wildlife—and other humans, while we social distance ). If you have safe access to outdoor space—a backyard, perhaps—Cornell also has a NestWatch program for people to report observations of bird nests. Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center has a similar Neighborhood Nest Watch program as well.

Birdwatching is easy enough to do from any window, if you’re sheltering at home, but in case you lack a clear view, consider these online-only projects. Nest Quest currently has a robin database that needs volunteer transcribers to digitize their nest record cards.

You can also pitch in on a variety of efforts to categorize wildlife camera images of burrowing owls , pelicans , penguins (new data coming soon!), and sea birds . Watch nest cam footage of the northern bald ibis or greylag geese on NestCams to help researchers learn about breeding behavior.

Or record the coloration of gorgeous feathers across bird species for researchers at London’s Natural History Museum with Project Plumage .

Pretty Plants

If you’re out on a walk wondering what kind of plants are around you, consider downloading Leafsnap , an electronic field guide app developed by Columbia University, the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution. The app has several functions. First, it can be used to identify plants with its visual recognition software. Secondly, scientists can learn about the “ the ebb and flow of flora ” from geotagged images taken by app users.

What is older than the dinosaurs, survived three mass extinctions and still has a living relative today? Ginko trees! Researchers at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History are studying ginko trees and fossils to understand millions of years of plant evolution and climate change with the Fossil Atmospheres project . Using Zooniverse, volunteers will be trained to identify and count stomata, which are holes on a leaf’s surface where carbon dioxide passes through. By counting these holes, or quantifying the stomatal index, scientists can learn how the plants adapted to changing levels of carbon dioxide. These results will inform a field experiment conducted on living trees in which a scientist is adjusting the level of carbon dioxide for different groups.

Help digitize and categorize millions of botanical specimens from natural history museums, research institutions and herbaria across the country with the Notes from Nature Project . Did you know North America is home to a variety of beautiful orchid species? Lend botanists a handby typing handwritten labels on pressed specimens or recording their geographic and historic origins for the New York Botanical Garden’s archives. Likewise, the Southeastern U.S. Biodiversity project needs assistance labeling pressed poppies, sedums, valerians, violets and more. Groups in California , Arkansas , Florida , Texas and Oklahoma all invite citizen scientists to partake in similar tasks.

Historic Women in Astronomy

Become a transcriber for Project PHaEDRA and help researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics preserve the work of Harvard’s women “computers” who revolutionized astronomy in the 20th century. These women contributed more than 130 years of work documenting the night sky, cataloging stars, interpreting stellar spectra, counting galaxies, and measuring distances in space, according to the project description .

More than 2,500 notebooks need transcription on Project PhaEDRA - Star Notes . You could start with Annie Jump Cannon , for example. In 1901, Cannon designed a stellar classification system that astronomers still use today. Cecilia Payne discovered that stars are made primarily of hydrogen and helium and can be categorized by temperature. Two notebooks from Henrietta Swan Leavitt are currently in need of transcription. Leavitt, who was deaf, discovered the link between period and luminosity in Cepheid variables, or pulsating stars, which “led directly to the discovery that the Universe is expanding,” according to her bio on Star Notes .

Volunteers are also needed to transcribe some of these women computers’ notebooks that contain references to photographic glass plates . These plates were used to study space from the 1880s to the 1990s. For example, in 1890, Williamina Flemming discovered the Horsehead Nebula on one of these plates . With Star Notes, you can help bridge the gap between “modern scientific literature and 100 years of astronomical observations,” according to the project description . Star Notes also features the work of Cannon, Leavitt and Dorrit Hoffleit , who authored the fifth edition of the Bright Star Catalog, which features 9,110 of the brightest stars in the sky.

Microscopic Musings

Electron microscopes have super-high resolution and magnification powers—and now, many can process images automatically, allowing teams to collect an immense amount of data. Francis Crick Institute’s Etch A Cell - Powerhouse Hunt project trains volunteers to spot and trace each cell’s mitochondria, a process called manual segmentation. Manual segmentation is a major bottleneck to completing biological research because using computer systems to complete the work is still fraught with errors and, without enough volunteers, doing this work takes a really long time.

For the Monkey Health Explorer project, researchers studying the social behavior of rhesus monkeys on the tiny island Cayo Santiago off the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico need volunteers to analyze the monkeys’ blood samples. Doing so will help the team understand which monkeys are sick and which are healthy, and how the animals’ health influences behavioral changes.

Using the Zooniverse’s app on a phone or tablet, you can become a “ Science Scribbler ” and assist researchers studying how Huntington disease may change a cell’s organelles. The team at the United Kingdom's national synchrotron , which is essentially a giant microscope that harnesses the power of electrons, has taken highly detailed X-ray images of the cells of Huntington’s patients and needs help identifying organelles, in an effort to see how the disease changes their structure.

Oxford University’s Comprehensive Resistance Prediction for Tuberculosis: an International Consortium—or CRyPTIC Project , for short, is seeking the aid of citizen scientists to study over 20,000 TB infection samples from around the world. CRyPTIC’s citizen science platform is called Bash the Bug . On the platform, volunteers will be trained to evaluate the effectiveness of antibiotics on a given sample. Each evaluation will be checked by a scientist for accuracy and then used to train a computer program, which may one day make this process much faster and less labor intensive.

Out of This World

If you’re interested in contributing to astronomy research from the comfort and safety of your sidewalk or backyard, check out Globe at Night . The project monitors light pollution by asking users to try spotting constellations in the night sky at designated times of the year . (For example, Northern Hemisphere dwellers should look for the Bootes and Hercules constellations from June 13 through June 22 and record the visibility in Globe at Night’s app or desktop report page .)

For the amateur astrophysicists out there, the opportunities to contribute to science are vast. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission is asking for volunteers to search for new objects at the edges of our solar system with the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project .

Galaxy Zoo on Zooniverse and its mobile app has operated online citizen science projects for the past decade. According to the project description, there are roughly one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. Surprisingly, identifying different types of galaxies by their shape is rather easy. “If you're quick, you may even be the first person to see the galaxies you're asked to classify,” the team writes.

With Radio Galaxy Zoo: LOFAR , volunteers can help identify supermassive blackholes and star-forming galaxies. Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout asks users to look for young, “clumpy” looking galaxies, which help astronomers understand galaxy evolution.

If current events on Earth have you looking to Mars, perhaps you’d be interested in checking out Planet Four and Planet Four: Terrains —both of which task users with searching and categorizing landscape formations on Mars’ southern hemisphere. You’ll scroll through images of the Martian surface looking for terrain types informally called “spiders,” “baby spiders,” “channel networks” and “swiss cheese.”

Gravitational waves are telltale ripples in spacetime, but they are notoriously difficult to measure. With Gravity Spy , citizen scientists sift through data from Laser Interferometer Gravitational­-Wave Observatory, or LIGO , detectors. When lasers beamed down 2.5-mile-long “arms” at these facilities in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington are interrupted, a gravitational wave is detected. But the detectors are sensitive to “glitches” that, in models, look similar to the astrophysical signals scientists are looking for. Gravity Spy teaches citizen scientists how to identify fakes so researchers can get a better view of the real deal. This work will, in turn, train computer algorithms to do the same.

Similarly, the project Supernova Hunters needs volunteers to clear out the “bogus detections of supernovae,” allowing researchers to track the progression of actual supernovae. In Hubble Space Telescope images, you can search for asteroid tails with Hubble Asteroid Hunter . And with Planet Hunters TESS , which teaches users to identify planetary formations, you just “might be the first person to discover a planet around a nearby star in the Milky Way,” according to the project description.

Help astronomers refine prediction models for solar storms, which kick up dust that impacts spacecraft orbiting the sun, with Solar Stormwatch II. Thanks to the first iteration of the project, astronomers were able to publish seven papers with their findings.

With Mapping Historic Skies , identify constellations on gorgeous celestial maps of the sky covering a span of 600 years from the Adler Planetarium collection in Chicago. Similarly, help fill in the gaps of historic astronomy with Astronomy Rewind , a project that aims to “make a holistic map of images of the sky.”

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Rachael Lallensack | READ MORE

Rachael Lallensack is the former assistant web editor for science and innovation at Smithsonian .

Research at Home: Citizen Science

Citizen science projects can be a great way to take a dive into research anytime, anywhere..

You can participate in a citizen science project, analyze data from these projects for your own research, get ideas for your own spin-off research, or create your own citizen science project.

Contribute to a Citizen Science Project

SciStarter is a globally acclaimed, online citizen science hub where more than 3,000 projects, events, and tools, searchable by location, topic, age level, etc, have been registered by individual project leaders or imported through partnerships with federal governments, NGOs, and universities.

With over 100 projects to choose from and no experience necessary, you can start classifying galaxies, finding kelp forests, or locating homes in rural Africa in minutes!

National Geographic

Did you know snapping mountain-top photos of smog and listening for frog calls can help scientists? Get engaged in these projects recommended by National Geographic!

Smithsonian

Contribute to the Encyclopedia of Life, transcribe field notes of notable scientists, or contribute to climate research by analyzing ginkgo trees in these Smithsonian-sponsored projects!

Inventing Tomorrow

Check out these citizen science projects led by our friends at Inventing Tomorrow: Water Insights, Curio, ISeeChange

Foldit is a crowdsourcing computer game enabling you to help fight disease by contributing to protein folding research.

ISEF Abstracts on Citizen Science

Check out these ISEF projects in Earth and Environmental Sciences and Animal Sciences, two of the twenty-one Regeneron ISEF categories. See more ISEF abstracts by visiting the ISEF Project database .

Earth and Environmental Sciences

• Studying Avian Biodiversity Changes after Wetland Restoration: A Novel Approach via Remote Sensing and Citizen Science
• Quakify: A Low-Cost, Crowdsourced, Real-Time Solution to Earthquake Early Warning
• An Innovative Crowdsourcing Approach to Monitoring Freshwater Bodies
• Coral Grief: Machine Learning on Crowd-sourced Data to Highlight an Ecological Crisis

Animal Sciences

• Developing Novel, Low-Cost Methods to Support Citizen Scientists in the Conservation of Bat Species
• Hopping Down the Bunny Trail: Spatial Distribution of Lepus americanus Tracks
• Fossil-Augmented Species Distribution Models Reveal the Shifted Baselines of California Avifauna under Climate Change

Society Blog Posts about Citizen Science

Projects: STEM in the world. Solutions in your backyard

Start your own citizen science project, federal government toolkit for citizen science, cornell citizen science toolkit, citizen science projects that share their data, articles about citizen science.

Science News  and  Science News for Students are our award-winning publications that cover current advances across all STEM disciplines. We have gathered a collection of articles specifically on Citizen Science to further shed light on this topic and provide inspiration for student research projects.

Kids make great citizen scientists

Researchers are making important discoveries, thanks to help from people of all ages

READ THE SCIENCE NEWS FOR STUDENTS ARTICLE

These women endured a winter in the high Arctic for citizen science

The two are spending nine months on Svalbard to collect data for climate scientists

READ THE  SCIENCE NEWS  ARTICLE

Getting on the citizen science train

If you have curiosity and a computer, you can participate in scientific projects

READ THE  SCIENCE NEWS FOR STUDENTS ARTICLE

An astrophysicist honors citizen scientists in the age of big data

The Crowd and the Cosmos examines the role of amateurs in science

READ THE  SCIENCE NEWS ARTICLE

Citizen scientists spy on camel crickets

Hiding in dark basements and garages, these insects live across the United States

Photographing wildflowers and other ways you can help fight climate change

Even nonscientists can take part in climate and conservation research

Scooping poop for science

Finnish study enlists members of 4H for a study on cowpats

Scientists seek bat detectives

You could help in an online research study by picking out bat calls

What do plants and animals do during an eclipse?

A citizen science project aims to gather data to put science behind anecdotal evidence. Want Science News for free for your school? Teachers can sign up for Science News in High Schools .

READ THE SCIENCE NEWS ARTICLE

Create your free Science Near Me account to find local science festivals, events, talks and more!

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Online and remote research, online & remote research opportunities .

Ground-breaking research is being done everywhere across the world, with much of the work being done from remote locations. Many academic departments offer both in-person and remote research opportunities for undergraduates either through working directly with faculty in a mentored project, through  Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs), or through  Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). As the university and faculty members adapt to an increasingly flexible workplace, online and remote research opportunities continue to increase. This page provides resources for undergraduate students seeking to find and be involved in remote and online research experiences during both the school year and the summer. 

Where do I find online and remote research?

The sections below share different avenues to find online, virtual, and remote research experiences for both the academic year and over the summer. These opportunities are available for any undergraduate student interested in remote research.

Check out Handshake , which can be used to find research positions, internships, employment opportunities, and networking events that are currently accepting applications!

What is Handshake?

• Handshake is a free-to-use online platform that undergraduates can use to find on-campus and/or off-campus workshops, jobs, internships, research experiences, and events.
• Students must use their UA NetID to create and log into your Handshake account.
• For more tips and tricks on how to utilize Handshake in your research journey, please visit here .

How can I use Handshake to find online and remote opportunities? 

• Log in Handshake  with your UA NetID in order to access the main home page.
• On the left-hand side bar, click on  Jobs .
• Go to  All Filters  and scroll down to the bottom until you see the heading  Labeled by your school .
• In the search bar that is below the Labeled by your school  heading, search  undergraduate research  in order to see the research opportunities that the URA staff has tagged.
• On the top bar, go to the  on-site/remote drop-down heading and filter by  remote - work from home.

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The UA Researchers Database  is   an online list of UA faculty from every academic department that welcome undergraduates students into their research projects. The database is updated regularly with new faculty who are interested in welcoming undergraduate students into their research projects on- or off-campus. Faculty can now indicate their ability to offer remote and online opportunities.

We recommend using our Faculty Profiles resource in conjunction with the UA Researchers Database. While the UA Researcher Database provides brief descriptions of current projects, profiles.arizona.edu  provides a convenient and extensive platform for learning more about a faculty member's research interest, current and past projects, publications, classes, and much more. 

How do I use the UA Researchers Database to find online and remote research?

• Go to our UA Researchers Database , which can be found under our  Find Research  drop-down heading.
• You will be able to set your preferences at the top of the database list, such as your preferred College ,  Department , and  Types of Opportunities  (e.g. for course credit, paid, volunteer, and/or not given). 
• You can also type a certain research interest you may have in the Keyword Search  area.
• You can also set your preferred location! In the  Research Location  menu, choose the  Online  option. This option was recently added to the database, so not many researchers have responded yet. Please Check again regularly for more online opportunities!
• Click the Apply option   when you have set all your preferences to see the list of faculty that best fits with your own interests and preferences!

How do I use the Faculty Profiles resource to find online and remote research?

There are two ways that you can use the profiles.arizona.edu to find online and remote research opportunities; we will be showing you both!

In Conjunction with the UA Researchers Database:

• Once you have found a faculty member that you are interested in from the UA Researchers Database, type their name name in the search bar below the  Search UA Faculty, Educators, Scholars, and Researchers  heading. Sometimes, it takes a long time for the profile to load, so please be patient!
• After the page has loaded, the faculty member's profile will appear below the search bar. Feel free to explore this informtion, which will include their  Biography , Interests  in teaching and research,  Courses , and  Scholarly Contributions , which includes their journals and publications.
• Before reaching out to the faculty member, we encourage you to read through their research interests as well as explore their publications , such as reading the abstract of their publication, in order to gain a better understanding of their research. If you need help in emailing and reaching out to faculty about research opportunities, please go to this helpful resource .

Only Using the Faculty Profiles:

• In the search bar below the  Search UA Faculty, Educators, Scholars, and Researchers  heading, you can search up certain key words that will lead you to faculty profiles that best matches it!
• Try searching up  online  and/or  remote  in the search bar to find faculty profiles that either teach courses or conduct research remotely and/or offer research opportunities that can be done remotely.

There are many online, remote, and virtual research programs available for undergraduate students across a broad variety of research interests. These programs can be summer or academic year and are offered by a number of universities. Please read each program carefully for their description, application requirements, and program dates. This section will be updated regularly as more online programs become available for the summer.

Online Programs for 2024-25

For other online summer research programs, please visit the AAMC's list of Summer Undergraduate Research and the NSF's list of Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) .

Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education (CARE) Scholars

Description :   The Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education (CARE) offers an immersive online course in Asian Health for undergraduate and graduate students, featuring a 9-week summer focus on Data Science and Vulnerable Populations. The program trains scholars in population science research, equipping them with skills in database analysis, healthcare research, and problem-solving in vulnerable populations. It emphasizes collaboration with various stakeholders and covers topics like Asian health, medical technology, AI, global health, research essentials, innovation, leadership, scholarship, presentation skills, and career development. Students will also be able to build valuable connections within Stanford CARE's global network and present their research at the annual Stanford's CARE Summer Research Symposium .

Application Requirements :   $75 application fee

Deadline :   January 10th, 2025

Program Dates : June 2025-August 2025

Texas A&M University Department of Material Sciences & Engineering Online Research Experience for Undergraduates (O-REU)

Description : The Texas A&M University is pleased to offer an online REU (O-REU) program in partnership with  Los Alamos National Laboratory . During the summer, students are expected to participate ( 40 hours/week ) and are remunerated $5000 for the summer. All activities are carried out fully remotely: there are no in-person meetings and no residency requirement. Travel support for one site visit will also be made available. O-REU is open to US citizens and permanent residents currently pursuing bachelor's degrees.

Application Requirements :   1 page resume, recent electronic transcript, list of preferred mentors (please consult the faculty interests list), and contact information (name, professional affiliation, email address) of two professional references

Deadline : Friday, April 28th, 2024 at 5:00 PM CST

Program Dates : May 24 to August 4, 2024

Please email the application required materials and/or any inquiries to  Ms. Isabel Cantu .

Neoscholar CIS Online Research Program

Description : The CIS online research program is offered throughout the year. A CIS program course usually hosts fifteen students, who are divided into small research groups. The program is generally 24 hours with our professors across ten weeks , including 2 hours of lectures in each of the first six weeks and 3 hours of research seminars in each of the last four weeks. Each course will be assigned an experienced instructor to provide academic instruction sessions and research guidance to students. 

Application Requirements : Please access the application form  and be able to answer its secondary questions.

Deadline : N/A

Program Dates : N/A

Please email any questions or request a brochure from [email protected] .

Description : CrowdMath is an online, open project that gives all college students the opportunity to collaborate on a large research project with top-tier research mentors and an exceptional peer group. MIT PRIMES and Art of Problem Solving are working together to create a place for students to experience research mathematics and discover ideas that did not exist before.

Application Requirements : Please create a free account to participate.

Please email any questions to  [email protected] .

Pembroke College of Cambridge Online Summer Research Programme

Description :  The Online Summer Research Programme offers you the unique opportunity to experience the renowned Cambridge style of teaching from anywhere in the world. It’s a real opportunity to challenge yourself academically and develop deep subject knowledge, working one-to-one with an expert in the field. From cyber warfare to the economic viability of Obamacare, we almost cover it all on our Subject Stream and for everything we don’t, you’re able to propose your own research topics on our Open Stream. Outside of supervisions, you’ll also connect and make friendships with other students on the programme through online networking events.  

Application Requirements : Have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.2, have finished your first-year of college, and have high level of English Fluency. Please visit the application site to see what other application materials are required (e.g. transcript, project form).

Deadline : TBA

Program Dates : July 1st-28th, 2024

Please email any questions to  [email protected].

BeMo ®  4-Month & 1-Year Research Programs

Description :   BeMo ® offers many different types of online research projects   for all undergraduate students that will best prepare them for their application to medical school.

• Online Independent Research Program : You can get research experience that makes your application stand out from the comfort of your home and have weekly meetings online via video conference with your team of research committee members. You can choose between the 4-months or the 1-year research program to conduct a literature review research project on a high impact topic hand selected by the PhDs.
• Step-by-Step Guided Research : The BeMo® team of research experts will help you each step of the way from choosing the best research topic to scientific research methodology to presentation and publication. Each week you'll meet for private one-on-one consultations to go over your research and get specific guidance and feedback as your progress.
• High-Impact Research Projects : You can research high-impact topics, such as Psychiatric, COVID-19, Substance-abuse, Vaccines, COPD, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Ulcerative Colitis, Stroke, Heart Attack, Asthma, Obesity, Women’s Health, Cancer, and more.
• Master Scientific Research Methodology : You will attend 6 guided workshops and complete 5 exercises to learn research methodology, literature search, data analysis, scientific communication, research manuscript creation, and research presentation. In the 4-months program you'll attend 15 sessions and in the 1-year program you'll receive 48 sessions to guide you at every step of the way.
• Gain Experience Writing Research Papers:  BeMo®  team of research experts will help you complete a research summary paper on your research topic to help you learn the essential principles of scientific inquiry and publication. Your research summary will be published on the BeMo®  website, so you can use it as a reference on your applications and CV.

Application Requirements :  You can schedule a free 15-minute initial consultation , where you will be able to talk about what option of research is the best fit for you. Prices for these research projects are listed on their website .

Program Dates: N/A

The University of Arizona Library  is available online for all UA undergraduate students. Students will be able to find wide variety of online resources, such as research journals, course guides, tutorials for library research, and much more. This section will provide a brief overview of resources that are available and important for online and remote researchers. Please also explore the UA Library Online & Distance Students site , which provides information on research resources, on how to develop your research skill. 

How can I find online research resources?

There are many different ways on how to find online research through the UA Library site. You will be able to access these online resources for free with your NetID and password.

• Use the library search engine to find both print and online content, including articles, books, ebooks, films, and more. You can type any keywords that may aid you in your search in the search bar at the top of the screen.
• You can also search through the online A-Z database  to find a specific resource based on subject, database type, vendor/provider, and keyword (e.g. description or title). 
• If you are unable to find what you need through the website, you can also receive a free library card at your local library, such as at Pima County Public Library , if you are a local resident.
• Finally, you can search for academic resources that are tailored to your discipline . This site features many guides that are categorized by course number (e.g. ENG 101), subject (e.g. General Chemistry), and topic (e.g. AI literacy). You can also search for a specific guide using the search bar near the bottom of the webpage. 

How can I learn and/or improve my research skills?

The UA Library has made quick video tutorials, articles, and quizzes that can teach you skills on how to be a better researcher, through both academics and research. These videos are meant to build your foundation in research, such as how to cite empirical articles, how to evaluate online information, how to find a research interest/topic, etc! Please explore the Learn with Tutorials webpage from the UA Library in order to delve deeper into the resources our online library has to offer! The UA Library also offer support for any researchers , such as funding & networking opportunities, research proposal plans, management of citations, publishing opportunities, and much more!

Not sure how to find an online research opportunity that suits your interests? Need help reaching out to faculty?

The Undergraduate Research Ambassador (URA) Team is here to support you on any step of your research journey. The URA Team URAs are able to provide one-on-one support to students who would like individualized help in exploring possibilities, communicating with a research mentor, sharing their research ideas, or preparing an application for a research program.

How can I individually meet with an URA?

There are many ways for undergraduate students, who are online and/or remote, to receive  one-and-one support  from URAs at any step of their research journey:

• Sign up for a 1:1 meeting!  Schedule your appointment through  Handshake . Meetings are available through zoom and usually last 30 minutes! Appointments can be made throughout the week, including weekends!
• Send an email!  Write any questions, thoughts, or concerns to  [email protected] . You can also send us email drafts, research program applications, resumes, etc for us to review for you!
• Check out other SECD resources!  The  Student Engagement & Career Development (SECD)  also provides individualized support on preparing your resume, CV, or cover letter for any applications through  Lifelab , which appointments can also be made through Handshake  with a  Career Educator  or  Career Peer Coach . 

What academic departments at the UA offer online and remote research?

Each academic department manages their own undergraduate research program and may have specific steps for how to become involved, even for online and remote research opportunities. The list below will provide links and information on the different types of online research, such as VIPs, CUREs, research teams, or faculty projects that are unique to the academic department or college. The full list of all of the academic departments and colleges, with links to their websites, can be found here . 

This sections lists online Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) for the  academic year of 2023-24  and other online research opportunities by online UA Faculty . This site will be updated regularly, so check in with us!

Online Course-Based Research Experiences for Fall 2024

APCV361: Data Analysis and Visualization

Description :   Data Analysis and Visualization will lay a foundation for students to understand how to process, analyze, and visualize data.  Topics include data collection and integration, exploratory data analysis, statistical inference and modeling, machine learning, and data visualization.  The emphasis of the course topics will be placed on integration and synthesis of concepts and their application to solving problems.  Students will explore these topics using software tools.

Prerequisites :   College of Applied Science & Technology (CAST) student, APCV 302 and APCV 320, Prior Python programming

Credits :  3 credits

Other Information : Asynchronous online, optional weekly meetings

Instructor :   Dr. Li Xu , College of Applied Science & Technology

BAT/ENGR/CALS 102 | Data Science Heroes: An Undergraduate Research Experience in Open Data Science Practices

Description :   Despite a growing demand for data scientists, university training in science ethics, code licensing and best reproducibility practices are not generalized for undergraduates. In this Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE), students will conduct an assessment of the current landscape and the evolution of accessibility, documentation and reproducibility practices in bioinformatics. The CURE will be a two-credit course in the Department of Biosystems Engineering accessible to students from any college. Students will learn and reflect upon best practices for open science and science reproducibility. Several practical skills will also be developed such as science communication, as well as the use of computational tools for code versioning and documentation.

Prerequisites :   None

Credits : 3  credits

Other Information : Asynchronous online

Instructor : Dr. Bonnie Hurwitz , Dr. Alise Ponsero, College of Engineering

HWRS 349A&B/350 | Principles of Hydrology

Description : Students in this course will work to answer the question: “Do monsoon storms start later in the day than they did decades ago?” This question has been raised by numerous long-time Tucson citizens, who insist that monsoon storms start in the late evening (after sunset) rather than 3-5pm. While this started as a pedestrian question, it also has meteorological and practical implications if it is in fact true. The in-person class is a hands-on Collaborative Learning course, and there is a practical, applied lab with several field trips, many of which involve interaction with hydrology & atmospheric science professionals. Some examples of field trips for the lab include: Stream gaging with the US Geological Survey; A tour of the National Weather Survey office and a weather balloon launch; A tour of Biosphere2's Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) Project; and more! This is an excellent course to gain a broad, applied understanding of virtually every subdiscipline in hydrology!

Prerequisites :   Calculus I (MATH 113 or MATH 122A&B)

Credits : 3 Credits

Other Information : Online

Instructor : Dr. Martha Whitaker , College of Science

LING 2/3/499: Community-led Language Technology Development

Description : Students will join a community-based language technology development project, the Coeur d’Alene Online Language Resource Center (COLRC), as an example of a community lead language technology development project that focuses on the needs of a low-resource, minoritized language community. Depending on their skills and interests, participating students will enroll for 1 to 3 credits, at a course level (299, 399, 499) appropriate to their experience, and be assigned to assist in the development and deployment process. The project supports students who wish to develop skills in linguistic analysis and language activism, along with at least one of the following technical skills: coding for frontend, backend, rest interfaces, and scripting (javascript, python); database development (postgres, graphQL); and/or natural language processing (ingest, tokenization, annotation tasks using lum.ai/odinson libraries). Interested students should have at least some familiarity with and enjoyment of coding, but need not have significant experience or expertise in these areas. Students who are members of minoritized or low resource language communities will bring particularly valuable experience and expertise to this work, but any undergraduate student is welcome to participate

Credits : 1-3 credits

Other Information : Asynchronous Online

Instructor :  Amy V Fountain ,  College of Humanities

Online Course-Based Research Experiences for Spring 2025

Description :   Data Analysis and Visualization will lay a foundation for students to understand how to process, analyze, and visualize data. Topics include data collection and integration, exploratory data analysis, statistical inference and modeling, machine learning, and data visualization. The emphasis of the course topics will be placed on integration and synthesis of concepts and their application to solving problems. Students will explore these topics using software tools.

LING2/3/499: Community-Led Language Technology Development 

Description :  Students will join a community-based language technology development project, the Coeur d’Alene Online Language Resource Center (COLRC), as an example of a community lead language technology development project that focuses on the needs of a low-resource, minoritized language community. Depending on their skills and interests, participating students will enroll for 1 to 3 credits, at a course level (299, 399, 499) appropriate to their experience, and be assigned to assist in the development and deployment process. The project supports students who wish to develop skills in linguistic analysis and language activism, along with at least one of the following technical skills: coding for frontend, backend, rest interfaces, and scripting (javascript, python); database development (postgres, graphQL); and/or natural language processing (ingest, tokenization, annotation tasks using lum.ai/odinson libraries). Interested students should have at least some familiarity with and enjoyment of coding, but need not have significant experience or expertise in these areas. Students who are members of minoritized or low resource language communities will bring particularly valuable experience and expertise to this work, but any undergraduate student is welcome to participate

Credits : 1-3 credits 

Other information :   Students interested in enrolling should email Dr. Amy Fountain at  [email protected]

Instructor:   Dr. Amy Fountain ,  College of Humanities

Online UA Research Labs & Projects for Spring 2024

If you are interested in any of these opportunities, you will need to contact the faculty member in charge of the project. Please read our tips on  writing an email to faculty  or schedule a 1:1 Handshake appointment with an URA for personal support on drafting emails.

For other online research opportunities by UA faculty, please visit our extensive database of professors conducting online research and welcoming undergraduate students.

Dr. Dalal Alharthi - Cybersecurity and related fields

Description :   Preferred interest in Cloud Security; Penetration Testing; Incident Response; Human-Computer Interaction (HCI); Privacy; and Cybersecurity Education. I nterdisciplinary Research opportunities are available in the intersection between the area of Cybersecurity and several areas such as Computer Science; Public Administration; Business Administration; and Education.

Prerequisites : None

Types of Opportunities : Volunteer, For Credit

Commitment :  If volunteering, you should commit to 6 hours or more per week. For credit, you may enroll in an Independent Study course.

Principal Investigator :   Dr. Dalal Alharthi , Computer Science

Alicja Babst-Kostecka - Plant Environmental & Genomic Adaptation

Description : My research combines genetic, phenotypic, and environmental information in an integrated framework to study plant adaptation to changing environmental conditions. I am particularly interested in the mechanisms that allow certain plant species to colonize industrially contaminated habitats at former mining sites. These species thereby undergo rapid genetic and physiological adaptation. Specifically, they have evolved the ability to tolerate and sometimes accumulate remarkable amounts of metal trace elements – traits that I am studying in both field and controlled laboratory experiments. My interdisciplinary work sets the stage for mitigating the legacies of industrial exploitation. By advancing the molecular basis of phytoremediation and biofortification efforts, I strive to contribute to improving environmental and human health.

Types of Opportunities : Volunteer, For Credit, Paid

Commitment : N/A

Principal Investigator :   Dr. Alicja Babst-Kosetecka , Environmental Science

Mixed Augmented ViRtual eXtended Reality Laboratory - MA[VR]X

Description : The Mixed Augmented ViRtual eXtended (Reality) Laboratory in the College of Applied Science & Technology is the University of Arizona’s home for research, exploration, and development for alternative and extended reality media and training in southeastern Arizona. We take a very broad view of “extended reality” to include everything from head-mounted display Topics include: Posthuman inquiry, applied post-phenomenology, extended reality, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, Web3, metaverse, educational technology, instructional technology, human-computer interaction, cybersecurity, cyber operations, digital identity.

Prerequisites : Preferred interested in extended reality and comfortable with fully remote research. Enrollment in APCV 399 (1-3 credit hours) required.

Types of Opportunities : For Credit

Commitment : 3-9 Hours per week

Principal Investigator :   Dr. Ryan Straight ,  College of Applied Sciences & Technology

Purnima Madhivanan   - Public Health & Health Promotional Sciences

Description : Purnima Madhivananis an Associate Professor in Health Promotion Sciences at the Mel & Enid College of Public Health at University of Arizona. A physician by training from Government Medical College in Mysore, she has a MPH and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley, USA. She completed her post-doctoral training in 2010. She is the Director of Public Health Research Institute of India (PHRII) and is also the Director of the Global Health Equity Scholars (GHES) Training Program in collaboration with Stanford, Yale and University of California, Berkeley. For the past 20 years, her work has focused on disadvantaged populations, elucidating the dynamics of poverty, gender, and the environmental determinants of health, in particular the impact on women and children living in rural communities. She established a clinic in Mysore, India in 2005 while completing her PhD dissertation. For over a decade, the PHRII/Prerana Women’s Health Initiative has delivered low-cost, high-quality reproductive health services to 44,000 low-income women living in Mysore District. Offering a full-service clinic, molecular laboratory and active affiliations with several major tertiary care hospitals, the site is recognized as a research and training site for Global Health. The Saving Children Improving Lives Program focused on increasing integrated antenatal care and HIV testing services for women in rural and tribal communities using mobile clinics with the help of women’s self-help groups to mobilize and follow-up women. This program model was then adapted to provide cervical cancer screening services in the community in India, which is the only community based cervical cancer screening program in India. Dr. Madhivanan’s work focuses on addressing the systemic inequities that put India’s tribal and rural women at-risk for poor health and birth outcomes. Her current work is at the intersection of infectious and chronic diseases with a special focus on cancer. Dr. Madhivanan serves as an advisor to a number of state departments of Public Health, non-profit as well as governmental research organizations. In 2007, she received the prestigious International Leadership Award from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation for her work on HIV prevention. She has received several awards and honors for mentoring. Dr. Madhivanan’s global health credentials and clinical service has brought unique opportunities for collaboration; most recently benefiting students and faculty interested in learning about Global Health and service in a developing world setting.

Prerequisites : Proficient in Social Media, Website, Technology, MS Office

Types of Opportunities : Volunteer, For Credit

Principal Investigator :   Dr. Purmina Madhivanan ,  Public Health

Noshene Ranjbar - Cultural & Trauma Psychiatry

Description : Interested in integrative medicine; integrative psychiatry; culturally-sensitive and trauma-informed work with underserved, particularly American Indian community and refugees; mind-body medicine; physician wellness and burnout; medical student wellness and burnout; integration of indigenous and modern medicine and healing practices; PTSD and trauma-spectrum disorders

Prerequisites : Pre-Med

Types of Opportunities : Volunteer, For Credit, Paid

Principal Investigator :   Dr. Noshene Ranjbar ,  Integrative Psychiatry Program

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14 Virtual Research Opportunities for High School Students

Every discipline of study, from economics to physics to sociology, relies on research to fuel innovation. Research impacts the everyday functioning of industries, the direction of major policy decisions, and helps us understand the world around us. Today, research has become one of the most important ways for high school students to spend their time during the summer, with research experience becoming a distinctive advantage in the college admission process.

Students who live away from major cities and universities may have trouble accessing research opportunities. Fortunately, a number of research opportunities are now virtual, making them more accessible for students. In this blog, we've compiled 14 virtual research opportunities for high school students!

1. Lumiere Research Scholar Program

The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program tailored for high school students. The program offers extensive 1-on-1 research opportunities for high school students across a broad range of subject areas that you can explore as a high schooler. 

The program pairs high-school students with PhD mentors  to work 1-on-1 on an independent research project . At the end of the 12-week program, you’ll have developed an independent research paper! You can choose research topics from subjects such as psychology, physics, economics, data science, computer science, engineering, chemistry, international relations, and more. You can find more details about the application here .

Application Deadline : Varying deadlines based on cohort. Main summer deadlines are March 15, April 15, and May 15

Duration: Options range from 12 weeks to 1 year

Location : Remote — you can participate in this program from anywhere in the world!

Eligibility :

You must be currently enrolled in high school

Students must demonstrate a high level of academic achievement (Note: accepted students have an unweighted GPA of 3.3 out of 4)

No previous knowledge of your field of interest is required!

Program Dates : The summer cohort runs from June to August, the Fall cohort from September to December, the Winter cohort from December to February, Spring from March to June 

Perimeter Institute International Summer School for Young Physicists (ISSYP)

ISSYP is a summer program for current juniors and seniors who are interested in theoretical physics and want to pursue it in college. Students attend Perimeter Institute experts' talks on the newest theoretical physics issues, as well as short courses, keynote speeches, and mentorship sessions. ISSYP is a very competitive program that only accepts 30–40 students each year. While ISSYP used to be hosted at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, it is now an entirely online program.

Cost : $195

3. Veritas AI —AI Fellowship

Veritas AI focuses on providing high school students who are passionate about the field of AI a suitable environment to explore their interests. The programs include collaborative learning, project development, and 1-on-1 mentorship.  

These programs are designed and run by Harvard graduate students and alumni, and you can expect a great, fulfilling educational experience. Students are expected to have a basic understanding of Python or are recommended to complete the AI scholars program before pursuing the fellowship. 

The   AI Fellowship  program will have students pursue their own independent AI research projects. Students work on their own individual research projects over a period of 12-15 weeks and can opt to combine AI with any other field of interest. In the past, students have worked on research papers in the fields of AI & medicine, AI & finance, AI & environmental science, AI & education, and more! You can find examples of previous projects   here .

The application requires you to fill out an online application form, answers to a few questions pertaining to your background & coding experience, math courses, and areas of interest. It is open to all ambitious high school students located anywhere in the world. AI Fellowship applicants should either have completed the AI Scholars program or exhibit past experience with AI concepts or Python. Do note that the application deadline and program dates close on a rolling basis, with multiple cohorts throughout the year!

$1,790 for the 10-week AI Scholars program

$4,900 for the 12-15 week AI Fellowship 

$4,700 for both

Need-based financial aid is available. You can apply   here

4. Horizon Academic Research Program (HARP)

Horizon offers trimester-long research programs for high school students across subject areas such as data science, machine learning, political theory, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, psychology, and more! It is one of the very few research programs for high school students that offers a choice between quantitative and qualitative research.  

Once you select a particular subject track and type of research, you’ll be paired with a professor or PhD scholar (from a top university) who will mentor you throughout your research journey.  You’ll work to create a 20-page, university-level research paper that you can send to prestigious journals for publication as a high school student. 

This program is a solid opportunity for you to pursue a research program in highly specialized fields under the guidance of a top scholar.  The program also provides a letter of recommendation for each student, as well as detailed project feedback that you can use to work on future projects and college applications. Apply here !

5. UC San Diego Academic Connections Research Scholars

This summer program selects 25 students to work on research with a UCSD faculty researcher in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, or Nanotechnology. The program has shifted online for the 2022 edition. The program is available to rising sophomore, junior, and senior students. The program lasts 6 weeks.

Cost : $4,200

6. Secondary Student Training Program (SSTP) (University of Iowa)

Designed for advanced students in their sophomore and junior years, this program is highly selective and offers students the chance to conduct research in a wide list of fields ranging from Biochemistry to Religious Studies. Participants are placed under the guidance of a faculty mentor. While some disciplines can only be researched offline, others are available online. The length of the program is 5 weeks. Applications for this program close on February 18th.

Cost : $6,395

7. EnergyMag Research Internship

Open to high school and college students, EnergyMag offers virtual research internships to students looking to gain experience working in the renewable energy sector. Students gain research and analytical skills alongside work experience by researching specific companies, technologies, and markets. Internships can be half-time (2-8 weeks, 20 hours per week) or quarter-time (1-9 months, 8 hours per week).

Cost : None

8. Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory – High School Student Summer Research Fellowship

In this research fellowship, students join the MDI Biological Laboratory to develop their lab research skills. Participants receive hands-on training in research from instructors who work at premier labs. Before applying, students must be nominated by a teacher. Students receive a stipend for their participation.

9. Camp Euclid – A Mathematics Research Camp

Camp Euclid is a math research program for students that takes place online. Math problems that have never been solved before will be presented to the participants. Within a circle of fellow scholars, students spend time understanding, solving, and applying complex math problems. The opportunity is open to students over the age of 13.

Cost : $1,400

10. Seattle Children’s Research Institute – Research Training Program

Through this training program, students can become familiar with research and gain hands-on experience as well as increase their knowledge of global health. They will also participate in workshops on college readiness and career exploration. The program has both online and in-person components.

11. The Summer Youth Intensive Program

The College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley coordinates and conducts the Summer Youth Intensive Program. The one-year program helps students who are interested in scientific research gain hands-on experience and improve their chances of success in college. It also aims to assist students in adjusting to college life.

Cost : $14,500

12. CHORI – Cystic Fibrosis Summer Research Program

The CHORI Summer Student Research Program allows students to spend three months during the summer immersed in basic and/or clinical research. The program matches students with one or two CHORI PIs who act as mentors, guiding them through the whole research process. The phases include research design, hypothesis testing, and methodological development. At the end of the program, students present their findings to their peers.

13. Simons Summer Research Program

Conducted from June 27th to July 29th this year, the Simons Summer Research Program gives high school students the opportunity to undertake hands-on research in a variety of disciplines, ranging from science and math to engineering. Students can join research teams, collaborate with faculty members, and learn about laboratory equipment and methodologies. Students receive a stipend for their participation.

14. IIllinois – High School STEM Research Programs

This program is open to rising high school juniors and seniors. Students participate in a STEM research experience at a research university for 6 weeks during the summer. Disciplines range from cancer immunology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, physics, quantum mechanics, and bioengineering to electrical engineering. Students accepted into the program will be matched with another student and a teacher from their chosen field.

Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.

15 Best Online Research Communities and Forums

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Ever wondered where the top minds convene online? Find out in our blog post on the best Online Research Communities and Forums.

In the realm of scientific research, collaboration and information exchange are key elements to progress. But, researchers find themselves isolated, grappling with challenging questions and concepts alone. 

The vast universe of scientific knowledge can be overwhelming, leading to the familiar adage, “the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know.” 

What if there were spaces where researchers could share, learn, discuss, and grow together? This is where many online community platforms come into play.

Table of Contents

Online research communities and forums serve as a hub for knowledge exchange, connecting researchers from around the globe.

These online community platforms are home to a vast array of benefits such as:

Best Online Research Communities and Forums:

#1. researchgate: best for networking, collaboration, and research sharing.

ResearchGate is an expansive digital hub, ideal for networking, collaboration, and sharing research outcomes. Its unique attribute is the ability to directly connect researchers, fostering international collaboration.

For researchers seeking to collaborate and share their work broadly, ResearchGate offers an unprecedented opportunity for global connection and information dissemination.

Source: https://help.researchgate.net/

#2. Academia.edu: Best for Academic Research Sharing and Networking

For anyone in academia looking to expand their knowledge, build their network, and access a wealth of research materials, Academia.edu is a compelling choice.

#3. Springer Nature: Best for Accessing Scientific Literature and Community Interaction

Springer Nature Community stands out as a key access point to an ocean of scientific literature. The online community stimulates meaningful conversations and forge potential collaborations with like-minded individuals.

How much does it cost?

#4. Reddit – AskScience: Best for Science Questions and Expert Answers

Reddit’s AskScience, with its unique user-driven approach, has emerged as a popular hub for individuals to pose their science-related queries and receive answers from a community that includes experts and enthusiasts alike. 

This is one of the subreddits acting as a vibrant learning environment, thereby stimulating intellectual curiosity and fostering a deeper understanding of science.

#5. Stack Exchange: Best for Expert Knowledge and Community Support

Stack Exchange operates as a well-recognized platform for sharing expert knowledge and fostering community support. 

For anyone seeking answers or wishing to share knowledge, Stack Exchange is an ideal starting point.

#6. Bioinformatics.org Community: Best for Bioinformatics Discussions and Resource Sharing

This online community platform provides a tailored environment to delve into complex bioinformatics concepts and challenges.

Bioinformatics.org carves out a dedicated space for those interested in bioinformatics. This gives rise to a dynamic online research community for focused discussions and sharing of valuable resources to enhance their research trajectory.

#7. World Science Forum: Best for Multi-Disciplinary Scientific Discussions

The World Science Forum positions itself as a melting pot of ideas from various scientific disciplines. It is a platform where discussions are as diverse as the community.

The World Science Forum presents a dynamic and inclusive platform for stimulating discussions across disciplines. This makes it an ideal choice for researchers interested in expanding their horizons and gaining diverse perspectives.

#8. LabWrench Community: Best for Lab Equipment Reviews and Troubleshooting

Source: https://www.labwrench.com/

#9. Mendeley: Best for Streamlining Academic Research and Enhancing Collaboration

Mendeley Advisor Community provides a powerful, all-encompassing solution for academic researchers, offering advanced tools for literature management, collaboration, and personalized research discovery. 

If efficiency and streamlined processes are your priority in academic research, Mendeley Community is an excellent choice.

#10. Science Forums: Best for Diverse Scientific Discussions and Knowledge Sharing

As a dynamic nexus for an array of scientific inquiries and exchanges, Science Forums stimulates a lively exploration of numerous scientific domains. Thereby, promoting intellectual curiosity and multi-disciplinary learning.

What are the benefits of Science Forums?

#11. Data Science Central: Best for Data Science Insights and Community Engagement

Data Science Central positions itself as a beacon in the dynamic world of data science. It encourages meaningful discussions, fosters an active community, and offers a treasure trove of data science resources.

For those navigating the ever-evolving terrain of data science, Data Science Central stands out as an enriching learning, networking, and resource platform.

#12. Quora: Best for General Knowledge Questions and Expert Advice

With its wide array of topics and access to expert insights, Quora has the potential to be a powerful catalyst for intellectual curiosity and expansive learning.

#13. Machine Learning Mastery Community: Best for Machine Learning Enthusiasts and Collaboration

The Machine Learning Mastery Community is a specialized digital gathering place, specifically honed for deep, meaningful exchanges on machine learning. 

If you’re a machine learning enthusiast desiring a concentrated, synergistic platform, the Machine Learning Mastery Community serves as a stellar resource for individual growth in this rapidly evolving domain.

#14. The Literature Network: Best for Classic Literature Discussions and Analysis

The Literature Network emerges as a lively epicenter for classic literature exchanges and dissection, bridging literature lovers worldwide for a deep dive into timeless literary treasures.

#15. Climate Science Community: Best for Climate Science Research and Discussions

The Climate Science Community provides a much-needed arena for concentrated dialogue and collaboration on climate science. For those poised to contribute to this critical field, it stands as an invaluable platform.

Source: https://climatescience.org/

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They Grow So Fast: Moon Tree Progress Since NASA’s Artemis I Mission

Transforming Space Exploration: NASA and Northrop Grumman’s Digital Engineering Collaboration

NASA Moves Drone Package Delivery Industry Closer to Reality

50 Years Ago: Launch of Helios 1 to Explore the Sun 

La NASA identifica causa de pérdida de material del escudo térmico de Orion de Artemis I

Preguntas frecuentes: La verdadera historia del cuidado de la salud de los astronautas en el espacio

El X-59 enciende su motor por primera vez rumbo al despegue

Open source science opportunities, space station research integration office.

NASA BPS Open Science Data Repository

The NASA Open Science Data Repository consists of two integrated biological databases—Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA) and GeneLab—into one centralized data system. The Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA) is the official repository of non-human science data spanning a broad range of biological levels involving data from tissues, organs, whole organisms, physiology, and behavior. GeneLab is an open science multi-omics repository hosting transcriptomics, metagenomics, epigenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data. Studies comprise of data from model organisms including microbes, plants, fruit flies, rodents and humans. This database enables the accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of biological data from space-related experiments.

GeneLab: Open Science for Exploration

GeneLab expands scientists’ access to the research conducted in microgravity with experiments that explore the molecular response of biology to spaceflight environment. The vast amounts of raw data generated by experiments aboard the International Space Station are available to a worldwide community of scientists and computational researchers in an open access database.

Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA)

The LSDA is a publicly accessible active archive of data from NASA-funded spaceflight, flight analog and ground-based life sciences research investigations. Basic descriptions of the individual investigations are provided, and data collected from these investigations (when available) are stored in primarily file-based formats (e.g. spreadsheet, text, and image formats). Non-attributable data for many of these investigations can be downloaded directly from the website. However, sensitive or attributable data must be requested via the Data Request Portal. New or updated information is continually added to the archive. 

Physical Science Informatics (PSI)

The Physical Science Informatics (PSI) data repository is the archive for physical science experiments performed on the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Transportation System (STS, or space shuttle). The PSI system is accessible and open to the public, and is a resource for researchers to data mine the PSI system and expand upon the valuable research performed by NASA in space, using it as a research tool to further science, while also fulfilling the President’s Open Data Policy.

Materials In Space

Materials used on the exterior of spacecraft, satellites and space stations in low-Earth orbit are subjected to many environmental threats that can cause degradation. Space environments affect flight experiments and test the stability and durability of materials and devices in the space environment. The goal of this site is to provide single-point access to the data and analysis from research into materials in space. Data are stored in NASA’s Materials And Processes Technical Information System (MAPTIS).

Earth Science Data from the International Space Station: The NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) provides Earth science data to users from satellite, airborne, and International Space Station (ISS) missions for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans. This coordinated approach enables an improved understanding of the Earth as an integrated system. Earthdata Search is a tool that enables users to search for and obtain EOSDIS data. Earth science data collected by sensors aboard the ISS is available via Earthdata Search here. NASA’s Earth science data adheres to an open data policy. For more information about EOSDIS, its data, and the missions it supports, visit the Earthdata website.

NASA Task Book

Task Book: Biological & Physical Sciences Division and Human Research Program is an online database of research projects supported by the Space Biology and Physical Sciences research areas within the Biological & Physical Sciences (BPS) Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and the Human Research Program in NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate. Research projects within the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) are included, beginning with FY2017 projects. The database also includes research projects of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), all completed by May 2017. Database information includes project descriptions, annual or final research results, Earth benefits and research impacts, and listings of publications resulting from the NASA-funded research. (Formerly the Space Life & Physical Sciences Research & Applications (SLPSRA) Division Task Book, the Space Biology and Physical Sciences programs transferred to the Science Mission Directorate in July 2020.)

NASA’s Open Data Portal

In answer to the White House mandate to release NASA’s data to the public, the Open Data Portal is a continuously growing catalog of publicly available NASA datasets. Users are invited to innovate with NASA data from multiple categories: aerospace, applied science, earth science, management/operations, and space science. The Developers Portal has documentation on  Application Programming Interface (APIs), code snippets for building apps, visualizations, and more.

NASA is partnering with the PubMed Central (PMC) repository, hosted by The National Institutes of Health, to provide public access to peer-reviewed papers resulting from NASA-funded research. Beginning with research funded in 2016, all NASA-funded authors and co-authors (both civil servant and non-civil servant) have an Agency requirement to deposit copies of their peer-reviewed scientific publications and associated data into NIH’s NASA publication repository, PubSpace.  You can browse and search for NASA related articles archived in PubSpace.

PubMed® comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books all aimed at improving health–both globally and personally.. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. PubMed was developed and is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

HICO – NASA Ocean Color Database

The Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO™) was an imaging spectrometer based on the PHILLS airborne imaging spectrometers. HICO is the first space borne imaging spectrometer designed to sample the coastal ocean. HICO sampled selected coastal regions at 90 m with full spectral coverage (380 to 960 nm sampled at 5.7 nm) and a very high signal-to-noise ratio to resolve the complexity of the coastal ocean. HICO demonstrated coastal products including water clarity, bottom types, bathymetry and on-shore vegetation maps. Each year HICO collected approximately 2000 scenes from around the world.  HICO is no longer hosted on the International Space Station though the data from its mission is archived here.

ASIM Science Data Centre

The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) is an observatory on the International Space Station (ISS) that measures lightning and bursts of gamma-rays from thunderstorm clouds. The overarching goal is to understand the role of electrified storms in atmospheric dynamics. ASIM is a mission of the European Space Agency ESA’s SciSpace Programme for scientific utilization of the ISS and non-ISS space exploration platforms and space environment analogues. The ASIM Science data Centre (ASDC) is processing and distributing the ASIM data.

Erasmus Experiment Archive

The Erasmus Experiment Archive (EEA) is a database of ESA-funded or co-funded experiments covering a wide range of scientific areas, which were performed during missions and campaigns on/in various space platforms and microgravity ground-based facilities, starting from 1972. (Please note: this site will eventually be replaced by the Human and Robotic Exploration Data Archive).

Human and Robotic Exploration Data Archive (HREDA)

The HREDA archive collects the results of ESA funded or co-funded experiments covering a wide range of scientific areas, which were performed during mission and campaigns on/in various space platforms and microgravity ground-based facilities.

UTilisation ISS (UTISS)

The ISS Publication ARChive (ISPARC) database collects the results of ASI-funded or co-funded experiments covering a large number of scientific areas (mainly on human physiology and biology and biotechnology research), which were performed during mission on ISS and on ground-based facilities in preparation of space experiment, starting from 2014.

Data ARchives and Transmission System (DARTS)

Data ARchives and Transmission System (DARTS) is a multi-disciplinary space science data archive for astrophysics, solar physics, solar-terrestrial physics, lunar and planetary science, and microgravity science.

International Space Station – KIBO

This site provides archives of JAXA investigations using the International Space Station and the Japanese Experimental Module “Kibo” as well as useful information for investigators, such as an overview of the Kibo module and the experiment facility inside/outside of the Kibo module. The site also offers current status of Kibo utilization, including Japanese astronauts’ activities, international collaboration activities and highlighted releases open to the public. You can also get the exciting ISS/Kibo news and overall JAXA’s activities relating to the ISS program.

JAXA Biorepository at Tsukuba Space Center – Integrated Biobank for Space Life Science (ibSLS)

The Integrated Biobank for Space Life Science (ibSLS) is a database of multi-omics data, including transcriptome, metabolome, and phenotypes obtained from mouse habitat missions conducted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The JAXA Tsukuba Space Center stores more than 600 biospecimens remaining from spaceflight investigations conducted since 2016. Biospecimens are available on request first to Japanese investigators, then to those in the USA under the Japan-US Open Platform Partnership Program (JP-US OP3). The missions utilized a mouse experimental system for space flight, referred to as Mouse Habitat Unit (MHU), in order to achieve the return of live mice.

JAXA ISS Space Radiation Environment Data Base

The PADLES (PAssive Dosimeter for Life science Experiments in Space) is a dosimeter for space radiation particles. JAXA has been performing a series of space radiation measurements onboard the International Space Station Japanese Experiment Module, Kibo, using PADLES system since 2008, at the same time of Kibo attachment to ISS. These radiation measurement data are used for JAXA’s astronauts’ radiation exposure management and for life-science experiments in space. We manage flight experiments and related ground-based studies with PADLES.

International Space Station ROSCOSMOS General Information [Site not accessible at this time]

(Topic “All available data”) The Roscosmos web site contains description of the ISS modules and the scientific equipment for experiments conducting onboard the ISS RS.

International Space Station ROSCOSMOS Educational Activity

(Topic “Investigation Archive”)The educational web site Korolev’s Planet is dedicated to the popularization of the Russian manned space flight activities and experiments conducted in space. It contains materials dedicated to space research, technologies and educational projects, interviews and reminiscences of active participants in space events, as well as unique materials from archives. The objective of the materials posted on the web site is to get thinking people actively involved in space science, to provide them with an opportunity to take part in a new technological breakthrough.

Unique Space Lab (ROSCOSMOS) [Site not accessible at this time]

The ROSCOSMOS data base captures the scientific, technology demonstration and education experiments that have been conducted on the International Space Station. 300 unique experiments across the spectrum of scientific activities are being held.

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