Finding synergies between data generators and data consumers in National Geographic's Great Nature Project

Since 1888, National Geographic has been inspiring people to care about the planet. In 2013, National Geographic launched the Great Nature Project (GNP) to encourage people to get outside, explore nature, and share photos of... [ view full abstract ]

Since 1888, National Geographic has been inspiring people to care about the planet. In 2013, National Geographic launched the Great Nature Project (GNP) to encourage people to get outside, explore nature, and share photos of biodiversity in "a project as big as the world itself". The goal was to make participation as easy as possible in order to reach the greatest number of people. In its first year, GNP reached over 17,000 people and amassed >300,000 photos by aggregating data from 9 different photo/observation-sharing platforms. However, there was not a pre-defined scientific use for the data produced since the initial goal was about engagement and participation. National Geographic has broad reach and a long history of success based on identifying and supporting exciting research, and that’s what we hope to do with the Great Nature Project moving forwards. We want to find people who have big research questions that can be answered using the kind of data generated by GNP, and we want to facilitate their research by providing a platform and promotion. In 2014, GNP began working more closely with iNaturalist.org and encouraging iNaturalist contributions as the preferred method of participation through direct iNaturalist integration on our site. In collaboration with iNaturalist, we are soliciting “data consumers” who have clearly identified uses for the data. Ideally, projects have clear science objectives from the start, but the reality is that sometimes projects start generating data before there are clear uses for the data itself. In these cases, it is important to consider where the organization’s strengths lie and determine how to best leverage them to create mutually beneficial collaborations.