Community Science is an equitable exchange benefitting both communities and science. Work can be community-owned and led, or a collaboration between researchers and community members. Communities include people sharing a common identity, history and/or heritage; a group of people sharing a common, place-based challenge (e.g., localized pollution); people united by a common livelihood (e.g., a fishing community, a farming community); and/or people organizing around a common problem or goal. In recognizing all of these definitions, CSE promotes the engagement of groups who are underrepresented and underserved by science as it is largely practiced today.

We define Science as encompassing Indigenous, non-Western, and Western (a.k.a. "mainstream") frameworks of empirical, hands-on exploration, observation, experimentation and research. Disciplinary boundaries are broad; the Community Science Exchange includes research within the social and natural sciences, engineering, and public health traditions.