How can crowdsourcing help tackle the COVID‐19 pandemic? An explorative overview of innovative collaborative practices

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused unprecedented public health and economic crises. As a response to face the current emergency, science and innovation communities are realizing a fundamental contribution to tackle the crisis. During the past few months, we have witnessed an impressive number of initiatives to encourage networking opportunities, to foster interactions between the different stakeholders involved (health care, industry, governments, academics, ordinary people), and to develop innovative solutions and collaborative infrastructures in support of the health sector. Adopting an open and collaborative approach and joining forces is essential in the fight against the COVID‐19 crisis. Also, the involvement of crowds as innovation partners can be of great support. Therefore, our work aims to review and classify those initiatives, based on the crowdsourcing model, that have been put into place to face the emergency generated by the novel coronavirus pandemic. We illustrate the 16 crowdsourcing initiatives devoted to the SARS‐CoV‐2 outbreak that we identified, detailing their development and implementation. Then, we propose a classification of them, along two dimensions: type of crowdsourcing configuration and kind of tasks, being able to find a relationship between these two aspects. Evidence from the analyzed projects suggests that across disparate domains, crowdsourcing can be an effective strategy in the response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. To conclude, we suggest some important implications for innovation best practices and lessons that can be learned for the future: crowdsourcing, harnessing the power of crowds and online communities, can help tackle the COVID‐19 pandemic, by providing original, actionable, quick, and low‐cost solutions to the challenges of the current health and economic crisis.

Using crowdsourced medicine to manage uncertainty on Reddit: The case of COVID-19 long-haulers

“…These community-led initiatives will fill key knowledge gaps that help tackle crucial clinical questions on the complexities of COVID-19 infections. Vermicelli et al [27] conclude that regardless of their sources or goals, crowds and online communities represent an effective COVID-19 response strategy because they provide original, actionable, quick, and low-cost solutions to the health and economic crises spurred by the pandemic.…”

Navigating the New Normal: Which firms have adapted better to the COVID-19 disruption?

“…Very recent studies on the effects of COVID-19 complement this body of knowledge through qualitative evidence regarding the role of exaptation 1 /repurposing (Ardito, Coccia and Petruzzelli, 2021;Liu, Beltagui and Ye, 2021) and open innovation via crowd funding (Vermicelli, Cricelli and Grimaldi, 2021) in developing innovations to cope with the medical, social and economic challenges raised by COVID-19. However, as discussed in the previous section, while innovation remains one of the most lucrative and impactful strategies firms have at their disposal to combat the negative effects of a crisis, we still lack knowledge on the reversal of this relationship: that is, whether firms that innovate stand a better chance of adapting to crises, and in particular to complex, global crises such as COVID-19.…”

Smart and Resilient Urban Futures for Sustainability in the Post COVID-19 Era: A Review of Policy Responses on Urban Mobility

“…Technology offered plenty of opportunities to pave the way for the emergence of bottom-up initiatives targeting community self-help and mutual support through social media and online platforms. These initiatives bring communities together, encourage networking, develop innovative solutions and collaborative infrastructure in support of those in need, and, therefore, shape social resilience by mobilizing collective intelligence [25,52,53].…”