Semifinal and Final
The semi-finals and final were held on Wednesday 19 August 2026 at University of Reading. They were streamed on YouTube .Teams from the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin competed to be the 2026 champions.
In the first semifinal, between Aberdeen and Anglia Ruskin, Aberdeen were just ahead at the end, so went into the final. The second semifinal between Cambridge and Edinburgh went to a tie-breaker with questions about necrobotany. Cambridge identified the second dead plant correctly, to reach the final.
In the final, the teams were every evenly matched, with each overtaking the other. However, in the final round, Cambridge managed to keep ahead of Aberdeen to become the winners of Botanical University Challenge 2026!
Fourth Student Botany Festival
The fourth Student Botany Festival was held in August 2026 in a vibrant two‑day gathering of BUC students and professional plant enthusiasts. All students who had taken part in BUC2026 were invited. This year’s festival coincided with the Centenary celebrations of the University of Reading Charter, who were one of the sponsors of the event.
Day one festival highlights included student flash talks and guided tours of the Harris and Learning Gardens along with a bryophyte tour and a mini-FISC experience. Networking opportunities abounded with a plant swap during lunch, while the afternoon featured lectures from Dr Kristel Schoonderwoerd (Edgehill University and The Boating Botanist) and Dr Paul Kenrick (Natural History Museum) as well as time to talk with ‘Experts at the Table’. The evening brought a buffet dinner and more informal discussions with people keen on plants.
Day two shifted the focus to careers and skills. After a panel discussion that explored opportunities in academia, consultancy, agriculture and horticulture, there was time for one‑to‑one conversations with careers personnel and industry stalls. In the afternoon there were interactive workshops about herbarium practice, botanical illustration, plant identification, gamifying botany, and more. The festival closed with keynote speaker Dr Jamie Thompson (University of Reading) sharing his career journey with plants, ensuring inspiration for the next generation of botanists.
Sponsors and supporters in 2026
How did the earlier 2026 rounds go?
One team of 4 students (Diploma, BSc, MSc or PhD, with one reserve) entered the competition from each institution. Where there was a lot of interest (and why wouldn’t there be?!) there was usually an internal contest to select team members and the reserve.
The first rounds were on-line multiple choice questions on topics including plant ID, ecology, conservation, plant pathology, biochemistry, molecular genetics, plant uses and also plants and botanists in history and culture.
The first two rounds were on 11 and 18 February 2026, streaming on YouTube. The quarterfinal was on-line on 25 February to select the 4 teams with the highest scores to take part in the live semi-final and final. They were teams from the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin.
Day 1
After the first knock-out round of 50 multiple-choice questions on 11 February, the 8 teams with the lowest scores left the competition. They were from the Universities of Dundee, Durham, Essex, Liverpool, Nottingham, Oxford Brookes, Royal Holloway and Sheffield. Our commiserations! Dr Martin Barker , Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at University of Aberdeen asked the questions. He and John Warren provided a commentary on the teams’ answers.
A recording of Day 1 is available on YouTube.
Day 2
Another 7 teams left the competition after the second day of 50 questions, asked by Professor Yoselin Benitez-Alfonso, Professor of Plant Sciences and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Leeds. These were the teams from universities of Oxford, Reading, Aberystwyth, Bristol, Harper Adams, Queen’s Belfast, University College Dublin, Southampton and Portsmouth. Sad to see them go!
A recording of Day 2 is available on YouTube.
Day 3 – Quarterfinal
The remaining 15 teams competed again, with Dr Karen Bacon Lecturer in Botany and Plant Sciences at the University of Galway asking the questions. After the last round, the teams from universities of Aberdeen, Cambridge and Edinburgh were ahead of all the others, but there were five teams contesting for the final place in the semifinals. These were from the universities of Anglia Ruskin, Bangor, York and University College London as well as from Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The result of a round of 5 tiebreaker questions was that they all had the same score, so there was another set of tiebreaker questions. This time the team from Anglia Ruskin University got all 5 of them correct, ahead of the other teams to be in the Semifinals.