The Botanical University Challenge: Bridging isolation and empowering plant-aware students

Societal Impact Statement
In some indigenous languages, plants are referred to as ‘those who care for us’,
reflecting their essential role in tackling global challenges. Yet, urbanisation and other
factors have reduced engagement with plants and botany, decreasing awareness,
especially among students. To combat this, three botanists launched the Botanical
University Challenge (BUC) to inspire plant-aware students in the United Kingdom
and Ireland. We show how, through competition, BUC fosters a community of
budding botanists, equips students with skills to tackle environmental issues and
bridges fragmented interest in plants. Its success has sparked similar contests internationally, showcasing BUC's broad appeal and potential to elevate botany globally.
Summary
The Botanical University Challenge (BUC) competition was first devised by three academic botanists in 2015 to champion plants and plant-aware students and to help
connect disparate and disconnected student botanists across the United Kingdom
and Ireland. Since then, BUC has grown in popularity to become the largest annual
botanical contest in Europe (and possibly the world) with teams competing from a
total of 33 higher education institutions from the United Kingdom and the Republic
of Ireland answering questions on the full breadth of the botanical sciences. Through
running the competition and (since 2023) an associated Student Botany Festival, the
BUC Planning Team has had the opportunity to engage with a diverse cohort of
plant-aware students, from undergraduate to doctoral level, enabling them to share
their values, passions and concerns for the future. We discuss the development of
BUC and our ambitions concerning the future growth and impact of the BUC competition and the ways in which BUC has supported plant-aware students, such as skills
training and career pathway development. We also present two international case
studies where the BUC format has been used to facilitate student education and
engagement in other countries. We envision BUC as a vehicle to enable connection
between plant-aware students, not only nationally within the United Kingdom
but internationally, by encouraging and supporting other communities in similar
endeavours.