ANERIS contributed to the City Nature Challenge for the fourth consecutive year, by taking a part in its local initiative - BioDiverCiutat 2026. The citizens scientists initiative, invites and encourages people to discover and document urban biodiversity through the MINKA platform. 

End of April this year, EMBIMOS research group and the Institut Botànic de Barcelona (IBB) organised the fourth edition of the BioDiverCiuta in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area The event was supported by the EU projects ANERIS, ECS, CSMACH1 and ENHANCE.    

Continuing for four days, the BioDiverCiuta involved 53 participants, who managed to record more than 3,270 biodiversity observations by using ANERIS’ open-access platform - MINKA platform, where 754 of those records were species across the metropolitan region. All collected data can be found on the MINKA platform and is available to use for further research in the same region. 

Globally, the City Nature Challenge gathered more than 106,000 participants, which concluded in the generating of more than 3 million biodiversity observations and documenting more than 75,000 species worldwide. 

The City Nature Challenge is the perfect example, which shows the importance of citizen science in the practice of species observation and biodiversity enhancement. 

The event is planned to make a comeback in 2027, if interested in participating - keep an eye on their website here.