Join the 2024 Biodiversity Challenge for ICA members
Following the 12th ICA Rectors and Deans Forum October 2022 on biodiversity and the resulting communiqué in which ICA members pledge to put biodiversity conservation at the heart of their activities, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) took up the organization of a "Biodiversity Challenge" among ICA organisations in May-June 2023. Last year’s Challenge was a great success, with almost 2000 individuals from 15 ICA organisations actively participating (see results here). Apart from the many species recorded at ICA campuses all over Europe, the most striking was the connection that it inspired not only amongst staff and students at each participating organisation, but also between the ICA organizations. If you’d like to get a taste of this, watch the video from last year’s Challenge here or read here.
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As all participants were very enthusiastic and got inspired on how to do things even better, WUR decided to organise another Biodiversity Challenge in 2024, from 2nd May – 28th June.
The idea of the Biodiversity Challenge is to organise simultaneous monitoring of biodiversity (a BioBlitz) at all ICA member campuses between 2nd May and 28th June, carried out by staff and students at each university/faculty. Each participating organisation defines their own area in which they want to record species and decides how they want to organise their participation. The organising team at WUR provides guidance throughout the process and on the monitoring platform and apps.
See the 19 participating ICA Member universities of the 2024 Challenge
Timeline
By 31 January 2024 Inform the organising team at WUR that your institution will participate & provide a contact person
Feb 2024 Information meetings for participating universities organised by WUR
Feb-May 2024 Planning and organisation participation in the BioBlitz by participating ICA members
Week of 18th March Workshop on using the Observation.org platform – mandatory for contact persons of each participating organisation
2nd May 2024 Kick-off
28th June 2024 Closing event
Minimal requirements for participation
Contact person, in charge of participation in the BioBlitz 2024 at your institution;
Organising a group of enthusiasts to record species at your institution;
Participation in the monitoring workshop in March, kick-off moment on 2nd May, and closure event on 28th June;
WUR hopes that many of you will join in this year’s Biodiversity Challenge!
Please notify the organizing team at