Insights from the United Kingdom’s first national Wiki Science Competition since 2019 

At the end of May, the UK’s first Wiki Science Competition (WSC) since 2019 drew to a close. After a rewarding 6 months of volunteering, the winners of the 2025 competition were announced on Wikimedia Commons closing the chapter on my first experience as an organiser.

6 images from the contest went through to the international competition, following a process of careful deliberation by the jury. The overall national winner was User:Julian Herzog’s image of a black-headed gull in non-breeding plumage from the Nature & Wildlife category. Placed second and third respectively, was User:Whyistheskyblue1’s image of a sodium laser guide star at the William Herschel Telescope and User:WelshDave’s image of a Welsh mute swan cygnet. Three further images received honourable mentions for their outstanding quality, progressing alongside the winners.

Here, I reflect on what inspired me to get involved and on my experience working with Lucy Moore, my co-organiser and mentor, as well as a team of amazing volunteer judges – the majority of them young Wikimedians – to make the contest happen. 

How the UK’s Wiki Science Competition 2025 came to be

The Wiki Science Competition began in Estonia in 2011. Since then, it has spread across Europe and beyond to Africa, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. In 2025 – the 9th edition of the bi-annual contest – national competitions were hosted across 26 countries, enhancing open knowledge to support public understanding of science on a global level. For the first time since 2019, the United Kingdom was among these countries.

From the beginning, WSC UK 2025 was largely led and made possible through the work of young Wikimedians, highlighting what can be achieved by engaging and investing in youth as the leaders of tomorrow. Without a chance encounter at the Wikimedia Youth Conference in Prague, which I was able to attend thanks to a generous scholarship funded by Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation, this national contest would never have been realised.

I first heard about Wiki Science from Wiki Asmah, a Malaysian-Filipino Wikimedian and the lead organiser for Malaysia’s national contest. As we chatted at the conference, Asmah told me about her experiences. I was inspired and began to wonder whether I could bring this competition to the United Kingdom. Despite my growing curiosity after the conference in May, at that time I lacked the confidence to translate inspiration into action.

It was thanks to the mentorship I received from my co-organiser, Lucy Moore, that I was able to make this leap several months later, following my completion of Wikimedia UK’s Train the Trainer programme. Train the Trainer is a fully funded programme hosted by WMUK annually with the aim of equipping volunteers with the resources to train others by developing their skills and expertise through an online course and a series of workshops. This year, a mentoring scheme was launched to provide further support for volunteers afterwards. While meeting with my mentor Lucy to discuss my next steps as a trainer, I mentioned the possibility of hosting a regional Wiki Science Competition in the UK and she encouraged me to go for it, supporting me as a co-organiser and helping to secure essential funding for prizes from the University of Leeds Libraries.

Alongside my mentor, the strong network of young but experienced Wikimedians who I met at the Youth Conference, including Asmah, provided invaluable advice and support as I began my journey organising on Wikimedia Commons, a platform I had little prior experience with. Having such excellent support helped me stay resilient as I navigated not only technical challenges, but deeply personal ones too following the devastating loss of a loved one. Strong networks, both offline and on-Wiki, are critical for organisers, as they face grief or burnout while simultaneously juggling studies, careers, and personal lives alongside their contributions to Wikimedia Commons and sister projects like Wikipedia. Understanding how the wider Wikimedia movement can support Wikimedians to build and maintain support networks is therefore an important strategy going forward that could help to increase editor retention.

Lessons for the future

In 2027, the 10th edition of the Wiki Science Competition will be hosted. As Gauri emphasised, learning from the lessons taught by past competitions is critical to ensure that the United Kingdom’s next Wiki Science Competition (and other nationally hosted WSCs) can make an even greater impact in celebrating the nation’s scientific innovation and biodiversity, while promoting free, open knowledge.

Outreach efforts must be scaled up significantly to increase the competition’s impact in the future. To engage communities across the United Kingdom and to have a greater impact on the regional level, preparation is required much further in advance and must be accompanied by a much wider range of strategies. This will make it possible to reach a broader audience by promoting the contest for longer before submissions close.

With more time, holding outreach events online (and, where relevant, offline) to generate excitement and welcome new Wikimedians would be more realistic. Similarly, the recruitment of campus ambassadors from across the UK’s universities and educational institutions, as WSC India proved this year, would be made possible by starting preparations earlier. The strategy of ambassador recruitment for greater regional representation could also be extended to match the UK context by also appointing national coordinators for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Equipped with more specific knowledge of the challenges and opportunities facing the contest across these nations, national coordinators could increase the contest’s impact on the local level by fostering partnerships with organisations, clubs, and societies.

Social media must play a much larger role in these efforts, starting by setting up accounts for the contest across popular platforms. For example, Instagram has been used by contests like Wiki Loves Folklore for successful outreach as Ferfive, who is a young Wikimedian and the main organiser of Wiki Loves Folklore in Mexico, told me as she gave me advice on making the contest a success. Posts might highlight existing high-quality contributions on Wikimedia Commons from previous editions of the contest or could be infographics that provide fun facts alongside related images. It is easy to see the transferability of such strategies, shifting from folklore to science and scientists, especially those from underrepresented and marginalised backgrounds.

As we celebrate the completion of WSC UK 2025, reflecting on these lessons and applying them successfully will help to deliver an even greater impact on national, regional, and local levels when the next competition is hosted in 2027. But before the work on the next contest begins, I want to thank everyone who made this year’s contest possible, everyone who supported me on this journey (especially Lucy, Asmah, Nikos, Nurtenge and Ferfive), and everyone who participated, whether by submitting images or by volunteering their time to judge the images. Last but by no means least, thank you to the University of Leeds Libraries for their generosity in funding this year’s prizes.