Geonity has just reached 50 projects, which together add up to 1,949 observations contributed by 428 people. It is the Ibercivis Foundation platform, developed in collaboration with IPE-CSIC, for creating citizen science projects based on geolocated observations without having to develop an app of your own. Anyone can set up a project and anyone else can contribute from a phone or from the web.
A first look at the data shows that the platform took off in 2026, the year in which 36 of those projects were created and three out of four observations were recorded, and that much of the activity rests on a small group of very regular participants. To listen to the people who use it and decide with them how to improve it, Ibercivis has called an online meeting on Wednesday 18 November with the people who coordinate projects, also open to anyone thinking of creating one.
Online meeting for those who coordinate projects on Geonity
It will be held on Zoom on Wednesday 18 November at 13:00 (Spanish mainland time, CET) and will last about an hour. It is also open to anyone thinking of creating a project.
Register for the meetingWhat Geonity is
Until now, a research group, a school or an association that wanted to collect data with the help of the public had to start by building its own app, which means paying for the development, then finding a community willing to use it and keeping everything running for years, an effort many small projects cannot afford.
With Geonity, whoever coordinates a project can create it from the web and design their own form, with the fields, questions and photographs they need, and from then on participants can submit geolocated observations from the mobile app or from the web. That freedom to decide what is asked, in a simple way, is what sets it apart from other platforms.
The other advantage is that all the projects live in the same place, so that anyone looking for an active citizen science initiative to join finds it there, and anyone launching their own reaches a community that already exists.
The platform is free and is committed to open knowledge and to transparency towards those who take part. By default, the data collected are open, although a project can request an embargo period that allows it to carry out its research first.
Geonity is an initiative that originated at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE-CSIC) and the Ibercivis Foundation, led by Miguel Sevilla Callejo and Francisco Sanz.
Life-Nitrazens
Life-Nitrazens is a European project that studies the presence of nitrates in water with the help of the public. Participants take a sample from a fountain, a river, a well or the tap at home and record it in Geonity, that is, they note the sample code and the type of water point, describe its turbidity, colour and smell, indicate what is in the surroundings and whether it has rained in the previous two days, and add two photographs.
The app also stores the exact position of the sampling point. When the sample is analysed, the project team adds the nitrate concentration to that same observation, where it is shown alongside the rest of the data. Since June, 136 people have recorded 799 samples in this way, plus another 166 in a second project devoted to water points on private property.
The projects
Behind the 50 projects there are 891 registered accounts, 534 of them created in 2026, as well as 16 organisations and the 428 people who have submitted at least one observation. Not all of them have started yet, but 40 have already received some data.
Geonity registered its first project at the end of 2023 and grew slowly over the following two years. The change comes in 2026, when almost three out of four projects were created, and the pace has not slowed, since another three have been added so far in November.
Nor are they all equally advanced. Fifteen have more than ten observations, while others have only just begun. They are run by schools, associations, research groups and European projects.
The activity is also highly concentrated, as the five projects with the most data account for 86% of the observations and the top two for more than half. This should be kept in mind when reading the rest of the figures, which mainly reflect what happens in a few campaigns.
When people take part
The first wave of activity came in the spring of 2024, followed by a long, quiet period in which there were never more than 40 observations a month. Since June 2026 the scale has been different, to the point that three out of four observations in the whole history of the platform have been recorded in these last few months.
The community is growing along with the activity, since 230 of the 428 people who have contributed data made their first observation in 2026. Almost two out of three observations, moreover, come with at least one photograph.
Who takes part
Half of the participants have made only one or two observations. At the other end, 47 people have made ten or more and, between them, contribute more than half of the data, and 51 have collaborated in more than one project.
Turning a first observation into a second one is the challenge of any citizen science project. It is also one of the topics we want to discuss with those who coordinate projects on Geonity.
Where people take part from
During July and August, more than nine out of ten observations were sent from a phone, while in September and October the web gained ground to exceed a third of the total.
Geonity can be used from the web, geonity.ibercivis.es, and from the app for Android and iOS.
Online meeting on Wednesday 18 November at 13:00
To learn about that experience first-hand, we have called an online meeting with the people who coordinate projects on Geonity. It will be held on Zoom on Wednesday 18 November at 13:00 (Spanish mainland time, CET) and will last about an hour.
Several projects will present themselves in five minutes and explain what they do, how they use Geonity and what they have learned along the way. We want Geonity to be a simple, intuitive and easy-to-use tool, so the meeting will above all serve to hear what areas for improvement its users see and to make the platform truly useful to the citizen science community.
If you coordinate a project on Geonity, or are thinking of creating one, you can register for the meeting. And if you want to set up your own project, you can create it at geonity.ibercivis.es.
How to take part
There are three ways to join in. Anyone who wants to contribute data can download the app for Android or iOS, or go to geonity.ibercivis.es, and choose an open project. Anyone with a question to answer with the help of the public can create their own project on the same website. And those who already coordinate a project, or are about to, have a date on 18 November. For any questions, just write to info@ibercivis.es.
Thank you
These 50 projects and their almost 2,000 observations are the work of those who have created a project, of those who moderate them and of the 428 people who have gone out to observe. Thank you to all of them and, in advance, to those who join from now on.
About the data. The data come from the Geonity production database and were extracted on 11 November 2026. The figure of 50 projects includes projects in preparation, not yet visible on the platform, and some test projects. Participants are registered accounts that have submitted at least one observation; 23 anonymous observations are not attributed to any person. The origin of each observation, app or web, has been recorded since 2026.