2 July 2026

The World Data System (WDS) is preparing to implement several important updates to our membership structure, Constitution, and Bylaws. These changes have been recommended by our Subcommittee on Standards and Certification, approved by the Scientific Committee, and are designed to ensure WDS remains aligned with evolving international standards and community needs.

But these changes can only be adopted with your participation! To move forward, we need at least two-thirds (2/3) of eligible members to meet the quorum for the vote.

What Will You Be Voting On?

Constitution

         View and download the Constitution with tracked changes here.

Bylaws

         View and download the Bylaws with tracked changes here.

Why Is Your Vote Important?

Per the WDS Constitution, a minimum of 2/3 of regular, associate, network, and partner members must participate for the vote to be valid.

These changes impact how our global community collaborates, governs, and grows – your input matters!

What Happens Next?

We encourage all WDS members to:

If you have questions or suggestions, please contact us at wds-ipo@utk.edu at any time. Your engagement ensures that WDS remains a robust and responsive community serving trusted digital data repositories worldwide.

Thank you for making your voice count!

WDS Scientific Committee member Claudia Maria Bauzer Medeiros was an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2025 award recipient, receiving an ACM Presidential Award, for her long-standing and significant contributions to the Brazilian and Latin American computing communities as well as to ACM. WDS congratulates Claudia on this incredible achievement!

CODATA, RDA, and WDS invite proposals to host International Data Week 2029, a four-day event bringing together leaders in research data and open science. Successful host proposals must demonstrate strong local partnerships, venue/platform readiness, and robust financial support.

Application Deadline: 2 November 2026

WDS hosted one webinar in June 2026:

CoreTrustSeal 2026–2028: Key Changes, Challenges, and Community Support. If you missed this webinar and would like to watch it now, you can find the recording and slides on our Webinar Archive page.

In March and April of 2026, WDS added 47 new items to our TRUST Principles WG Zotero library. To review the new items, visit our Zotero library and filter the items by date.

International Data Week (IDW) 2027 will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 20-23 September 2027. Mark your calendars and plan to join us for this fantastic conference that brings together data professionals, researchers, policy makers, and innovators from around the world. Stay tuned for more details on the program and registration.

EarthScope Consortium is a global community of employees, scientists, scholars, and educators whose goal is to advance understanding of the Earth and its physical systems by democratizing access to geophysical instrumentation, observations, and practices. The organization serves as a steward of geophysical facilities, supporting long-term, fair, and open access to instrumentation, observations, and established practices. Collaboration is emphasized within a broad community, with employees encouraged to find solutions through trust, teamwork, and communication.

EarthScope is well suited for partnership with WDS as both organizations value the importance of open access to the scientific community and strive to increase open access when possible. The democratization of access to geophysical instrumentation, observations, and practices through open access to their data repository shows their commitment to open science and further illustrates the value in their partnering with WDS. EarthScope Consortium became a candidate member of WDS in June 2026.

First Nations Economics (FNE) is an Aboriginal-led, Supply Nation-registered charity with a clear vision: to achieve social, cultural, and economic prosperity for First Peoples. FNE is deeply committed to this vision and works to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through expert advice, advocacy, and genuine lived experience. FNE works in economic policy, analysis, research, monitoring, and evaluation and collects, uses, and shares datasets in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS).

FNE’s commitment to using accurate, culturally informed, and actionable data in their decision making processes positions them as an exemplary partner for WDS, which similarly promotes best practices and the use of reliable data to inform decisions. Moreover, both organizations value culturally informed data to support indigenous communities. FNE became an associate member of WDS in June 2026.

Crossref is hosting a webinar titled “What happens after the grant? Turning funding data into real insight,” which will cover how funding information can help meet open science commitments and track compliance with funding policies, as well as how connecting funding information to research outputs through Crossref creates a clearer picture of an organization’s research portfolio. This webinar will have two sessions, one available in English and one available in Spanish.

Webinar Dates & Times:

English

7 July 2026, 5:00 UTC

Spanish

7 July 2026, 15:00 UTC

The Research Data Alliance (RDA), a WDS associate member, is holding a Web Accessibility Event that will explore practical tools and guidance for making their digital/web-based content more inclusive and accessible. This event will equip attendees with actionable steps to embed accessibility into their everyday workflows, and particular tips and resources aimed at RDA members who contribute to the creation and production of Group outputs and recommendations.

Event Sessions:

The Archives & Records Association Conference 2026 will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, from 5-7 August 2026 and will explore a theme of “authenticity.” This conference aims to explore and interrogate the tensions between preservation and destruction, between authenticity and interpretation, and between professional values and practical realities, while also considering how authenticity can be meaningfully embedded in theory, practice, and education.

Registration Deadline: 13 July 2026

OpenAIRE, a WDS partner member, will be holding a series of OpenAIRE Graph Community Calls. This series will dive into the makings and workings of one of the world’s largest Scholarly Knowledge Graphs and give attendees the floor to ask questions, provide feedback, and make suggestions.

Call Dates: 15 July, 16 September, & 18 November 2026

Call Times: 11:00 CEST | 9:00 UTC

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is hosting the 2026 Global Conference on the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024-2033) on 15-17 July 2026 as a hybrid event in Paris, France. The conference will have the theme “Science in action: Charting a sustainable and equitable future for all” and will serve as a global platform to assess progress, share solutions, and forge the partnerships needed to mobilize science for sustainable development at scale.

The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) will be holding the COSPAR 2026 46th Scientific Assembly in Florence, Italy, from 1-9 August 2026. Registration information for this event can be found here.

The International Geographical Union (IGU) is hosting its IRC Regional Conference 2026 in Istanbul, Turkey, 17-21 August 2026. Participants can attend sessions reflecting the comprehensive perspective of Geography, meet with experts who will address important issues such as sustainable management of natural resources, climate change effects, protection of cultural heritage and digital geography, and share their knowledge and experiences, as well as establish new collaborations.

The Research Data Alliance (RDA)'s 27th Plenary Meeting (P27) is being held in London, United Kingdom, as an in-person event from 6-8 October 2026. P27 will be hosted by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and will have the theme “Shaping a Global Open Research Commons.”

Early Bird Registration Deadline: 27 August 2026

The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) is hosting its SCOR 2026 Annual Meeting from 8-10 September 2026 in Helsinki, Finland. You can find the event schedule and more information here.

iPRES 2026 will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, and online from 21-25 September 2026. The conference themes are Community, Preservation, and Horizon, which encourage reflections on the evolving practices, innovations, and collaborations shaping the future of digital preservation.

Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN), a WDS network member, is hosting its CLARIN Annual Conference 2026 in Brighton, United Kingdom, and online from 29 September-1 October 2026. This conference is organized for the wider humanities and social sciences communities to exchange ideas and experiences within the CLARIN infrastructure, including the design, construction, and operation of the CLARIN infrastructure; the data, tools, and services that it contains or for which there is a need; its actual use by researchers and teachers, its relation to other infrastructures and projects; and the CLARIN Knowledge Infrastructure.

The Singapore Open Research Conference 2026, being organized by WDS regular member DR-NTU (Data) and hosted by Nanyang Technological University, will take place in Singapore from 4-5 November 2026 with the theme “AI and Open Research: Building Trust, Ensuring Security, Driving Impact.” This conference aims to bring together researchers, research managers, librarians, research service providers, policy makers, funders, publishers, and leaders to explore how artificial intelligence is shaping open research and will examine important questions around trust, security, and impact, offering a platform to share insights, experiences, and best practices.

The 2026 Conference of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information will be held in Berlin, Germany, and online from 24-25 November 2026 with the theme “Aligning policy and practical implementation.” The conference will bring together the international community of signatories, supporters, and other stakeholders, and it will create a space to advance open research information across institutional contexts and explore how to align policy and practical implementation. More information about registration and participation will be available soon. In 2025, WDS endorsed the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research.

The International Digital Curation Conference 2027 (IDCC) will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 9-12 February 2027. The theme of this conference is “FAIR DO's: Centring People in the Stewardship and Curation of Digital Objects.” The conference is accepting five submission types: Papers, Lightning Talks, Posters, Demos, and Workshops.

Submission Deadlines:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) is hosting its NCI Data Jamboree: Enhancing Data Sharing and Utility to Advance Cancer Research from 16-18 November 2026 in Rockville, Maryland, United States. This event allows participants to work together in a small collaborative group setting and solve specific problems using a variety of cancer research datasets. In-person teams are preferred, but virtual and hybrid teams are allowed.

Registration & Project Submission Forms Due: 27 July 2026

The Open Repositories Steering Committee (ORSC) is accepting nominations for new standing members. The ORSC manages the annual Open Repositories Conference and typically consists of 12 standing members, as well as the chairs of the host and program committees for the annual conferences. New standing members will serve a three-year term (Sep 2026-Aug 2029), with the option to renew for a second term.

Nomination Deadline: 31 July 2026

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2026 Annual Meeting (AGU26) will be held 7-11 December 2026 in San Francisco, California, United States. Individuals are invited to submit abstracts that focus on scientific results, enabling Earth and space science or its application, or the contributions of the Earth and space sciences to society.

Submission Deadline: 5 August 2026

OpenAIRE, a WDS partner member, and Alien Intelligence are hosting a 12-week open science build challenge that is open to researchers, technologists, and end-users. Participants will explore the OpenAIRE Graph via the OpenAIRE MCP plugged into Alien's AI Gateway and will contribute artifacts that turn open science into insight, such as code, methodologies, applied case studies, and conversations.

Submissions Due: 20 August 2026

The Generative Decision Science Conference, being held from 26-27 November 2026 in Johannesburg, South Africa, aims to explore the transformative role of data-driven decision-making in addressing complex societal challenges and emphasizes open science, data stewardship, and evidence-based decision-making as critical enablers of inclusive development, particularly in emerging economies. The conference has an open call for papers and invites submissions from scholars, industry practitioners, and post-graduate students with research interests in the fields of Decision Science, Data Science, Information Science, Information Management, Knowledge Management, Information Systems, and other information studies.

Submission Deadline: 31 August 2026

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking new members to join its AI Consortium, which will concentrate on AI measurement, innovation, and adoption. Additionally, this group will focus on building an AI evaluation ecosystem, investing in AI-enabled science, and promoting the use of U.S.-developed AI technology and systems. The AI Consortium will have six task groups:

Open Science Collaborative of Library and Information Professionals (OSCLIP) invites individuals to contribute their instructional resources to a new OSCLIP initiative dedicated to building a comprehensive knowledge bank for open science instruction for library and information professionals. Their goal is to collect, organize, and share high-quality instructional materials that OSCLIP members can use, adapt, and reuse to inform and enhance their own instruction practices. Carnegie Mellon University, the host of the OSCLIP project, was a Lyrasis 2026 Catalyst Fund Recipient. The awarded amount will be used to help transition the four OSCLIP projects from prototypes to community-validated resources.

WDS is proud to support the development of the OSCLIP knowledge base with direct involvement in this working group. Join us by sharing your instructional resources.

Submission Deadline: 25 September 2026

The E-ARK Forum is seeking participation in the survey they have created to see how E-ARK specifications, tools, and the Reference Architecture are being used "in the wild.” The survey should take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

Survey Deadline: 6 July 2026

A working group of the Data Repositories Expert Group (DREG) of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada is developing guidance on trustworthy data repository characteristics ahead of the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy data deposit requirement anticipated to take effect in 2027. Those based in Canada are invited to provide inputs on the characteristics that will directly impact the guidance via the survey linked below:

Survey Deadline: 31 July 2026

“Towards a decentralized future for open-science databases” explores the proposal of a hybrid framework that integrates federated and decentralized models to ensure the resilience, sustainability, and FAIR/CARE stewardship of scientific data as a global public good for large-scale biological data repositories.

The Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), a WDS partner member, has shared the findings and resources from their Building Resilience of Data Repositories During Periods of Crisis project that began in October 2025 and lasted six months. This project engaged global experts and used Repository Crisis Scorecards (RCS) to examine how repositories experience disruption and how to strengthen their resilience.

“Transforming Research Visibility with RAiD at Oak Ridge National Laboratory,” a blog post from Lyrasis, delves into the planned adoption of RAiD (Research Activity Identifier) by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in an effort to track research activities from inception through execution and beyond, regardless of whether traditional outputs are produced.

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) announced the public launch of the UNESCO Open Science Platform, which was developed in partnership with the United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC). The platform was released as free and open-source software and aims to promote UNESCO-related knowledge and support the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

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