Global botanic garden network organization specializing in plant genetic resources conservation, biodiversity management, and public engagement on food security.
BGCI is the global membership organization for botanic gardens, connecting approximately 3,500 member gardens across more than 100 countries. Their core mission is plant conservation — threatened species programs, seed banking, genetic resources management, and coordinating conservation action across their worldwide network. In EU research projects, they bring this global reach to bear: mobilizing botanic garden networks for large-scale public engagement on food security, and coordinating plant genetic resources management across European institutions. They are not a research laboratory but a network orchestrator, uniquely positioned to connect scientific communities with public audiences and with distributed institutional plant collections worldwide.
GenRes Bridge directly addressed genetic resources and biodiversity management; BigPicnic engaged the public on food security — both draw on BGCI's institutional role managing and advocating for plant genetic diversity.
BigPicnic (coordinator, EUR 405,372) was specifically designed to engage the public with Responsible Research and Innovation on food security, with BGCI leading a 36-partner consortium.
BGCI's value in both projects rested on its capacity to mobilize its global network of member gardens as a coordination infrastructure — a capability unique to this organization in EU research consortia.
GenRes Bridge focused on joining forces for genetic resources and biodiversity management, where BGCI contributed policy-level expertise and international coordination capacity.
With only two projects spanning 2016 to 2021, BGCI's H2020 trajectory shows a shift from public-facing engagement toward technical institutional coordination. Their first project (BigPicnic) was a large, publicly visible coordination action centered on science communication and citizen dialogue around food security. Their second role (GenRes Bridge) moved closer to the scientific core — coordinating genetic resources management among research institutions — suggesting a maturation from outreach-oriented participation toward deeper scientific consortium work, though the data set is too small to confirm a firm trend.
BGCI appears to be moving from public communication roles toward technical genetic resources coordination, making them an increasingly relevant partner for biodiversity and agrobiodiversity research consortia.
BGCI demonstrated they can lead large international consortia — BigPicnic had 36 partners across 18 countries under their coordination. They also participate as a specialist contributor when the project calls for their network rather than their leadership. Their strength is not deep technical research but convening power: they bring together institutions that would not otherwise collaborate, using their global botanic garden network as the connective tissue.
BGCI has worked with 36 unique consortium partners across 18 countries in just two projects, reflecting their capacity to operate at a genuinely European and global scale. Their botanic garden membership network extends well beyond EU borders, giving them reach into institutions across Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
BGCI is the only organization in the EU research ecosystem that serves as the global umbrella body for botanic gardens — a network of approximately 3,500 institutions holding living plant collections, seed banks, and genetic resource archives worldwide. No university or research institute can replicate this convening authority. For any consortium needing credible public engagement around plants, food, or biodiversity — or needing access to distributed genetic resource collections — BGCI is effectively irreplaceable.
