City Nature Challenged: reflections on the experience of UK City Nature Challenge Organizers

The annual global City Nature Challenge (CNC) is one of the largest citizen science biodiversity monitoring events in the world: over a span of four days, members of the public record observations of biodiversity in urban areas using the iNaturalist app or online platform. The authors of this paper examined the experiences of UK organizers of the 2024 CNC.

Through surveys, semi-structured interviews and written responses, the authors found that participation in CNC events was a common gateway to taking up an organizer role. They also found that organizers were highly motivated by the fact that the CNC initiative allows them to contribute to biodiversity and/or conservation research. However, they found that a lack of time and funding were barriers for organizers who did not already have support from or were employed by local or national institutions.

Using this information, the authors developed six different CNC organizer typologies: 

• Educator – prioritizes accurate participant learning.
• Analyst – prioritizes the most rigorous and reliable recording of biodiversity data as possible.
• Bridge-builder – focused on fostering social links between people, organizations and nature-related issues.
• Technocrat – interested in how apps connect people to a common purpose and boost citizen science research.
• Guide – prioritizes the participants’ enjoyment of natural environments.
• All-rounder – this could be an individual or a team of organizers, concerned with balancing the need to capture biodiversity data with public engagement priorities.

The authors wrote that an understanding of organizer typologies will facilitate better strategies for CNC organizers, enabling them to find the right allies to achieve their CNC objectives, communicate in more targeted ways for effective public engagement, use technology as a gateway for nature-based engagement, and acknowledge barriers so they can (re)prioritize their own CNC goals.