Improving the quality of personal devices used to measure nutrition, health and living environment: that is the goal of the Citizen Science experiment, which gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to refine this equipment. Radboud University is collaborating on this initiative with Wageningen University and Research and Twente University. "The quality of some of the measuring equipment people use these days is appalling," says Jeroen Jansen from the Department of Analytical Chemistry at Radboud University. For example, devices that people install in their homes to measure odours. "These measurements are used to substantiate complaints about pollution caused by farms or companies in the area." Inaccurate measurements According to Jansen, few of these measurement results stand up to scrutiny. There are plenty of reasons why these measurements may be unreliable: the devices haven't been calibrated properly, the measurements weren't performed correctly or, even more simply, they were performed by people. The latter is more likely to come into play with health measurements, such as an app to measure glucose via the skin. "Just the simple fact that you are taking the measurements yourself could bias the results," says Jansen. "It's very hard to perform these tests without bias. When people think of measurements, they usually think of a device like a thermometer or a scale." He points out that measurement results like weight and temperature are influenced by several factors, such as the quality of the device, the way the measurement is performed, why the measurement is performed and the way the results are processed or combined with other results. "This forms an extremely complex whole," he says. "Several factors influence the information content of these measurements." From blood to breath Giving open access to laboratories gives device manufacturers the opportunity to make major improvements to their products. The measurements may involve liquid (water, blood, tears), gas (breath, air), soil or food products. According to Jansen, this is similar to the calibration process. Thanks to highly trained lab technicians and the best equipment, recommendations can be made that will help manufacturers develop and market the most reliable test equipment. The client datasets are also undergoing thorough statistical analysis and the device manufacturers are being advised on the digital safety of data collection. The latter is the responsibility of the Digital Security department at Radboud University. The Citizen Science lab, which opened earlier this month, marks the start of the partnership between five small to medium sized enterprises in the field of nutrition and scent detection, among others. Companies from all over the country are welcome, says Jansen. Given the state of existing measuring devices, he expects an influx of interested parties at the university labs. It's a three-edged sword: the equipment developers create better equipment, the users get more reliable results, and science gets a huge influx of data. "There are plenty of untapped sources of data out there," says Jansen. "Each of the companies will bring data with them that may be of great value to us, to society and to the other companies."