22 January 2026

As we begin a new year, let’s reflect on the progress and achievements of the World Data System Early Career Researcher (ECR) community throughout 2025. This year brought new members from around the globe, expanded leadership, and vibrant participation in key events—showcasing the growing impact and engagement of ECRs within our network.

Leadership & Representation

WDS-ECR welcomed two new co-chairs, Yuya Shibuya and Jing Zhao, joining Claire Rye in leading the ECR community.

In April, Yuya began serving as ECR liaison to the WDS Scientific Committee.

Claire Rye

Yuya Shibuya

Jing Zhao

Global Network Growth

23 new ECR members joined from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas—broadening perspectives and strengthening international connections. 

International Data Week 2025 Presence

ECRs had a strong presence at IDW 2025 in Brisbane, leading sessions, presenting posters, and engaging in competitions across diverse topics—from open data networks to data sovereignty. This visibility helped raise the profile of ECR contributions globally and foster international collaboration through joint activities with WDS partners and allied early career networks.

Looking Forward

Thank you to all ECR community members for your active participation and innovation during 2025! We look forward to continuing this momentum together in the coming year. 

1) Repository Resilience Workshop 

Join Joseph Gum, Reyna Broadhurst, and Meredith Goins for a hands-on session on evaluating repository resilience using the Repository Crisis Scorecard. 

🗓️ 5 February, 10:00–12:00 PT | 13:00–15:00 ET | 18:00–20:00 UTC 

💡 Follow-up office hours: 19 February (two sessions available) 

💰 Complete the survey and request a stipend (up to $50). 

2) Love Data Week Webinar: Persistent Identifiers 

Celebrate International Love Data Week with expert panelists from Research Organization Registry (ROR), DataCite, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KISTI), and Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB). Explore how persistent identifiers build trust and improve data discovery. 

🗓️ Europe-Americas Session: 10 Feb, 14:00 UTC – featuring wwPDB

🗓️ Asia-Oceania Session: 10 Feb, 23:00 UTC (11 Feb morning local) – featuring KISTI

🔍 Real-world use cases, practical tips, and Q&A. 

We value the voices of our Early Career community members. Let us know what skills, topics, and formats matter most to you by taking our quick poll. Your feedback will directly influence upcoming events and resources—make your impact today!

Research Excellence Capacity & Accreditation Pathway for Southeast Asia (RECAP SEA) is hosting their Capacity Building Workshop on Research Management and Administration from 22-23 April 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  

Workshop Focus: Research ecosystem, research integrity, project monitoring, budget & financial management, applied case studies 

Objectives: To pilot test training modules for RMA professionals; obtain feedback on the suitability of core component and content of RMA professional training; exchange good practices and lesson learned across the partner countries. 

Application Deadline: 23 January 2026 

Visit RECAP SEA's LinkedIn page for more information.

The 16th International HPC (High Performance Computing) Summer School 2026 is now accepting applications for participants. It will be held 12-17 July 2026 in Perth, Australia. This program will familiarize the participants with major state-of-the-art aspects of HPC and Big Data Analytics for a variety of scientific disciplines, catalyze the formation of networks, provide advanced mentoring, facilitate international exchange, and open up further career options. 

Eligibility rules can be found on the application form.  

Deadline to Apply: 31 January 2026

The FAIR in ML, AI Readiness, & Reproducibility Research Coordination Network (FARR RCN) is holding their FARR Workshop 2026 at the AGU Conference Center in Washington DC, United States from 8-9 April 2026.  

The workshop aims to make advances in the areas of AI Readiness, AI Reproducibility, and the intersection of the FAIR Principles and ML through:

Applications/Abstracts are due by 6 February 2026.

The 2026 Internet2 Community Exchange will be held 13-16 April 2026 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. This event combines strategic foresight and collaborative problem-solving, enabling participants to advance their organizational missions through collaboration and connection. Find registration fees, the event program, and more on the event website.  

A scholarship is available from the Internet2 Emerging Leaders (I2EL) Program for the 2026 Internet2 Community Exchange. The I2EL Program is designed to support and elevate rising talent within the research and education (R&E) technology community. This scholarship is designed to reflect the breadth and variety of the Internet2 community and invites applications from individuals representing a wide range of professional backgrounds and experiences. Information on ideal candidates and what scholarship recipients will receive can be found on the scholarship page.  

Application Deadline: 11 February 2026 

The Code4Lib Conference will be held 2-5 March 2026 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. This conference is an annual gathering of technologists from around the world, who largely work for and with libraries, archives, and museums and have a commitment to open technologies. 

The Global Young Academy is hosting their 2026 GYA Annual General Meeting (AGM) and International Conference of Young Scientists from 30 June-3 July 2026 at the Constructor University, in Bremen, Germany. Pre-Conference workshops will be held 28-29 June 2026. The conference theme is “Machine Intelligence for Society and for all Sciences.” 

This conference aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from all disciplines and from around the world to explore how AI and machine learning can drive progress across disciplines.

The Dataverse Community Meeting will be held 12-15 May 2026 in Barcelona, Spain. They are accepting submissions for two presentation forms: presentations and posters.  

Presentation: Presentations should last 15 minutes. Submission should include an abstract (maximum 600 words). 

Poster: Submissions should include an abstract (maximum 300 words). Poster design requirements will be published as soon as available on their website. 

Submission Deadline: 29 January 2026

The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) is conducting a global data collection to understand persisting challenges and barriers for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Their survey aims to collect views on progress made since 2015 on the SDGs and to understand the priorities that must be addressed to accelerate SDG progress by 2030 and beyond. The results will be presented in the Sustainable Development Report and posted on the SDSN website.  

Survey Deadline: 30 January 2026 

For questions e-mail: 

info@sdgtransformationcenter.org 

Researchers working with language datasets are invited to contribute to a new Special Collection of the Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD), focusing on the innovative reuse of mono- and multilingual language datasets across the humanities. This initiative seeks to highlight diverse cases where existing deposited language data has been repurposed within research projects from any humanities discipline. Submissions may also describe how data reuse efforts have led to the creation of new datasets. 

This is the last chance to submit. Those interested are encouraged to submit discussion papers (3,000–5,000 words) that detail the reuse of one or more existing language datasets, ideally those created by others. 

Submission deadline: 30 January 2026

The survey launched by International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC-Canada) as part of a case study focused on the Venezuelan scientific diaspora is closing soon. Its purpose is to gather information provided by members of this diaspora, in order to make it available to international funding agencies interested in supporting scientific-academic engagement and collaboration initiatives between the scientific diaspora, their country of origin, and other Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) ecosystems in Latin America. This project takes the Venezuelan case as a reference, approaching it as a case study whose findings could be relevant and transferable to the analysis of other scientific diasporas in similar contexts. 

The survey will be open until 31 January 2026.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Open Science Conference offers scientists from various disciplines and countries the opportunity to present their work, network, and participate actively in SCAR’s scientific activities. The 12th SCAR Open Science Conference will take place in Oslo, Norway, from 8-19 August 2026. The program features 50 sessions across the Physical Sciences, Geosciences, Life Sciences, Humanities, and Social Sciences, along with a large selection of cross-disciplinary themes. Abstract submissions are now open.  

Abstract Submission Deadline: 28 February 2026

The Language Documentation and Archiving Conference 2026, to be held 9-11 September 2026 in Berlin, Germany, invites those interested in joining scholars, activists, and technologists exploring new methods and technologies for documenting, preserving, and sharing the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity to attend and submit papers.  

The conference welcomes innovative and critical perspectives from both academic and community contexts. Although not required for your paper, the conference is interested in papers discussing the following themes: Relationships & Collaboration; Tools & Technology; Impact & Outcomes; Planning, Policy & Future; and Artificial Intelligence: Challenges & Opportunities.  

Submission Deadline for Abstracts: 1 March 2026

Maastricht University, located in Maastricht, Netherlands, has an open position for a Research Software Steward. This position supports researchers in sharing and using FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) research software, as part of Open Science by:

Application Deadline: 25 January 2026

The Momentum MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Momentum PPDF) is an initiative designed to attract and nurture up to 35 exceptional postdoctoral researchers from around the globe to “Lendület”, Momentum research groups in Hungary. “Lendület,” Momentum, is a flagship research program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), supporting top scientists in establishing independent research groups with full autonomy. Their second call for a research fellowship is open. There will be 16-18 positions available.

Fellowship Program Objectives:  

Application Deadline: 31 January 2026 

The Center for Algorithms, Data, and Market Design at Yale (CADMY) is offering multiple Postdoctoral Associate (PDA) positions designed for recent PhD graduates working at the intersection of Computer Science, Data Science, and Economics. CADMY is particularly interested in candidates with a research focus on algorithms, blockchains and cryptocurrency, causal inference, game theory, learning, machine learning, market design, and networks. Applicant’s PhD must be completed before appointment date. 

Start Date: 1 July 2026 

Salary: $90,000 USD per year plus Yale benefits and a travel/research stipend of $15,000 USD 

Application Deadline: 31 January 2026 

For questions, contact the CADMY Program Administrator via cadmy@yale.edu 

San Diego State University is hiring an Assistant Professor of A.I. This position is a full-time tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor with an expected start in Fall 2026 or Spring 2027. The position is expected to contribute to interdisciplinary AI initiatives across SDSU and will receive an academic appointment in either the Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, or Management Information Systems department depending on the candidate's academic training and expertise. Specific qualifications and application requirements can be found on the SDSU website.  

Application Deadline: 2 February 2026 

Sense about Science, an independent charity that promotes the public interest in sound science and evidence, offers Early Career Researchers the opportunity to get practical experience of communications, policy and public engagement, and issues of research quality through their Sense about Science Internship Program, which will help ECRs develop key professional skills and contacts, which will help ECRs develop key professional skills and contacts.  

Participants will work across a range of projects and programs including Evidence Week, the John Maddox Prize, Voice of Young Science , Public Engagement Partnerships and Transparency of Evidence Standard Campaign . 

Los Alamos National Laboratory has a multitude of internship and postdoc program opportunities available on their website. These range from research associate positions for postdocs to graduate and undergraduate internships. For more information, visit the Los Alamos National Lab Students and Postdocs page.  

Argonne National Laboratory has an open, ongoing application to become a Graduate Research Aide. Appointments can be made at any time, but most are made during the summer.

For more requirements for and information about these positions, visit the Argonne National Lab Graduate Research Aide Appointments page.

The European Open Science Cloud Association (EOSC) Federation has three open calls to support the growth of its organization:  

Enrollment Call – EOSC Tripartite Governance:

Invites organizations to join the second wave of the EOSC Federation’s build-up phase, requiring them to enroll as an EOSC Node, submit a Project Charter, develop use cases, and demonstrate their capacity to function as a community gateway. No funding provided

Preparatory Grants – EOSC Gravity:

Designed to support the preparatory work of potential future EOSC Nodes. The main objective is to develop a Project Charter for a subsequent, separate application to the Enrollment Call of the EOSC Tripartite Governance. Total funding: €800,000 Maximum grant amount: €50,000 per project 

Inter-project Grants – EOSC Gravity:

Aims to expand the services offered through the EOSC Federation and to demonstrate the benefits for end users. This can be achieved in two ways: by developing scientific use cases, or by piloting the onboarding of new services into existing EOSC Nodes, without the requirement to become an EOSC Node at this stage. Total funding: €400,000 Maximum grant amount: €50,000 per project 

Submission Deadline: 18 February 2026 

Schmidt Sciences is requesting proposals to the Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI), aimed at fostering research in the digital humanities with a particular focus on artificial intelligence. Ideal projects will have co-Principal Investigators with expertise from both the humanities and AI and will address research questions from both domains. This request is open to universities and non-profits globally. 

Two funding levels will be open for application:  

Level I: $100,000 - $299,999 

Aimed at new research projects without an established record of past success. It could be newly established collaborations or established teams, but the research is in an early stage.  

Level II: $300,000 - $800,000 

Aimed at scaling up and expanding mature projects. Applicants should be prepared to discuss the results of a previous planning or prototyping stage and how further funding will enable their project to reach its intended goals. 

Submission Deadline: 13 March 2026 

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