News and events
NBN Conference 2025 – Presentations
Thank you to everyone who joined us for this year’s NBN Conference on 20 November at the SS Great Britain in Bristol. It was great to see so many of you and we hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did.
170 delegates joined us, just about our highest in-person number ever, so thank you very much for your support!
Presentations
Links to all of the presentations from the Conference can be found below, which appear in alphabetical order. Each speaker’s name links to more information about them.
Duncan Allen
Duncan Allen – Plant pest scientist and risk analyst, Defra (Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) – “From Observation to Action: Using iNaturalist to help Monitor and Elevate Plant Health Awareness in the UK”
Dr Carlos Bedson
Dr Carlos Bedson – Quantitative spatial ecologist, Natural England – “Designing a climate change resilient landscape connectivity network from a multi-species perspective”
Dr Lauren Cook
Dr Lauren Cook – Molecular ecologist, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) – “Translating environmental DNA (eDNA) for monitoring nature”.
Tim Corner
Tim Corner – Manager, Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre – “Kestrel’s fluffy ears”
Martin Harvey
Martin Harvey – Coordinator of Zoological Data, UKCEH Biological Records Centre (BRC) – “From field observation to global data: (some of) the many links between recorders, schemes, organisations and portals”
Dr Ben Holt
Dr Ben Holt – Marine biologist and CEO, The Rockpool Project – “The Big Rock Pool Challenge – A UK wide marine citizen science adventure”
Dr Kate Ingenloff
Dr Kate Ingenloff – Scientific Officer, GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) – “Advancing Biodiversity Data Sharing in GBIF”
Katie-jo Luxton
Katie-jo Luxton – Executive Director, Global Conservation, The RSPB – Sir John Burnett Memorial Lecture – “Making data work for nature; the value of monitoring and recording to inform State of Nature reporting, drive recovery action and influence systemic change”
Dr Damian McFerran
Dr Damian McFerran – Records Centre Manager, Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR), National Museums NI (NMNI) – “CEDaR, what has it all been about?”
Simon Pickles
Simon Pickles, Chair of Trustees, National Forum for Biological Recording (NFBR) and Director, North and East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre – “Rooted in Data, Growing Through Time”
Emma Squire and Devmini Bandara
Emma Squire and Devmini Bandara – PhD students, University of Exeter (RENEW Biodiversity Programme: Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach) – “iNaturalistUK User Survey and Observation Records”
The presentation is not available for download, but you can read the two surveys that formed the basis of the presentation to get the full details. Both reports present findings from a study conducted as part of the RENEW project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. The research was led by Emma Squire and Devmini Bandara from the RENEW team at the University of Exeter as part of their doctoral studies, in collaboration with the NBN Trust.
iNaturalistUK User Survey 2024 – This study represents one of the first comprehensive efforts to explore the users of the iNaturalistUK platform, aiming to understand who the users are, how they engage with the platform, and what motivates their participation. It details the results of the analysis based on data collected through the iNaturalistUK user survey 2024.
iNaturalistUK Observation Records – This report presents the results of the data analysis of the iNaturalistUK observation records from 2008 to 2023
Christine Tansey
Christine Tansey – Biodiversity Data Manager (NBN Atlas), NBN Trust – “The NBN Atlas: building capacity and connections”
Dr Gareth Thomas
Dr Gareth Thomas – Chief Executive Officer, NBN Trust – “Sharing a vision for the future” and “Engaging the Widest Audience for Nature”
Dr John Tweddle
Dr John Tweddle – Head of Centre for UK Nature, Natural History Museum – Keynote Address – “Looking back, looking forward: reflecting on 25 years of partnering with the NBN Trust”
Tom Gray and Dr Gareth Thomas
Fireside Chat (there was no presentation for this):
Tom Gray – Head of Nature, BBC – “Engaging the Widest Audience for Nature”
Dr Gareth Thomas – Chief Executive Officer, NBN Trust
