8 January 2026

As we begin a new year, let’s look back at what the World Data System accomplished during 2025:

WDS welcomed the following new members in 2025: 

WDS hosted a town hall titled “World Data System Town Hall: Building Trustworthy Digital Repositories and Meeting User Needs Through Outreach, Advocacy, and Research” on Wednesday, 17 December 2025, at AGU25. This town hall included an introduction to WDS; updates on research projects, including the WDS Subcommittee on Standards and Certifications, the Data Repository Investment Value & Relevance (DRIVR) project, and the TRUST Principles for Repositories; a call for collaboration on the International Polar Year 2032 (video provided by Mark Parsons); an overview of the WDS 2025-2027 Action Plan and WDS training highlights from 2024-2025. The session closed with a Q&A section for further engagement with the community.

Daniela Santos Oliveira at the WDS Town Hall:

TH33F - World Data System Town Hall: Building Trustworthy Digital Repositories and Meeting User Needs Through Outreach, Advocacy, and Research

Danie Kinkade of BCO-DMO presenting at:

TH15J - GeoFAIR: Connecting and strengthening the data and digital object needs of researchers with the tools and infrastructure that can make a difference

NSF NCAR Town Hall

TH45A - NSF NCAR’s Advanced Computing, Data Services, Software, and Educational Resources for Earth System Science

Joseph Gum presenting on the Repository Crisis Scorecards (RCS) at: 

IN22A - General Informatics Session on Advancing Science Through Data, AI, and Innovation I GeoBurst

Along with our own town hall, WDS staff enjoyed presentations, posters, and meet and greets with members, partners, and individuals, including: Natalia Raia (WDS ECR Member), Douglas Rao (NOAA), DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement User Facility, NOAA, NASA, AstroMat, Joseph Gum (ESIP & Data Repository Scorecard), AuScope, Ocean Networks Canada, Danie Kinkade (BCO-DMO), NCAR and many others. See the full list of members who participated at AGU here. 

In 2025, the WDS Members Forum was held fully online for the first time, spanning three sessions: the Asia & Oceania Regional Session on 13 November 2025, the Africa & Europe Regional Session on 18 November 2025, and the North & South America Regional Session on 18 November 2025, to accommodate our members’ diverse time zones worldwide. Each session included insightful discussions on members’ recent achievements and ongoing challenges in the data repository landscape.  

Presentations by the following members were given during the regional sessions:  

Asia & Oceania: The Australian Antarctic Data Centre, Australian Ocean Data Network, Chinese National Space Science Data Center, IUGONET, China’s National Astronomical Center, World Data for Geophysics, Beijing, and World Data Center for Ionosphere and Space Weather

Left: Australian Ocean Data Network presentation by Mark Rehbein

Africa & Europe: 4TU.ResearchData, INTERMAGNET, National Oceanography Centre, Social Sciences Data Archive in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center, World Data Centre for Geomagnetism, Edinburgh, World Data Centre for Soils, and World Glacier Monitoring Service

Right: World Data Centre for Soils presentation by Dr. Bas Kempen

North & South America: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Ocean Networks Canada, and Worldwide Protein Data Bank

Left: Worldwide Protein Data Bank presentation by Dr. Dennis Piehl

WDS members raised awareness to a variety of challenges they are currently facing: restricted data access, integrating the use of the CARE Principles for ISO-19115 in the metadata, emerging cloud-optimized standards and best practices, talent recruitment and retention, increased diversity of user requirements, a need for fundamental information resources for those new to data stewardship, software solutions for data and metadata services, funding, and CoreTrustSeal certification/recertification. In response, WDS is actively pursuing initiatives to address these issues and provide targeted support for its members and will align its activities in the coming year to directly tackle the priority areas identified during the Forum.

WDS, alongside RDA, CODATA, and ARDC, hosted International Data Week in Brisbane, Australia, 13-16 October 2025. This biennial conference includes both the RDA Plenary and WDS and CODATA’s SciDataCon, as well as IDW plenaries and networking opportunities to bring everyone together. 

In total, the conference hosted 807 attendees, including 704 onsite and 103 online, representing 75 countries, who participated in four plenaries, 107 sessions, and 130 posters.  

We are grateful for the over 300 abstracts submitted to SciDataCon and for the 60 posters, 32 sessions, and 63 lightning talks that were held. 

Congratulations to the 2025 WDS Data Stewardship Award recipients:

Nominations for the 2026 Award remain open until 16 January—learn more and submit a nomination here.

Endorsements are an integral part of WDS’s action plan, integrated into Objective Three of the 2025-2027 Action Plan: Demonstrating global leadership in data governance. Through these endorsements, WDS emulates and serves as a role model for best practices in data governance.

In 2025, WDS endorsed both the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information and the International Science Council's Statement on "Safeguarding and Enhancing International Scientific Collaboration for Climate Action." More information on these endorsements can be found on the WDS website. 

In 2025, WDS published 18 policy papers reviewing national data repository governance, advancing our mission to foster global collaboration and transparency in scientific data stewardship. Our commitment to publishing in both English and national languages helps make information accessible to all stakeholders, regardless of linguistic background. 

Of all the webinars WDS hosted in 2025, these were most popular:

Past webinar recordings can be found on our website!

Thank you to our members for your commitment and collaboration throughout 2025. With your ongoing support, we are excited to face new opportunities and challenges in 2026, and we invite you to stay engaged as we continue advancing data stewardship worldwide.

WDS has reviewed and provided constructive feedback on ESIP’s new author guidelines for research publications that use physical samples. These guidelines, developed through strong community input, have the potential to enhance research integrity, traceability, and reuse. WDS’s detailed feedback can be accessed here.

The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI Australia) is one of only two Tier-1 high-performance data, storage, and computing organizations in Australia. NCI Australia supports research by providing data services and supercomputing expertise to government agencies, universities, and industry across a broad range of scientific domains. Through their unique collaborative network, NCI Australia aims to increase access to quality data for the international science community, foster collaboration and innovation, and support high-impact research across all sectors.  

NCI Australia and WDS share a common goal to advance long-term data stewardship and promote high standards for research data management and sharing. With it’s Tier-1 status and extensive collaborative network, NCI Australia brings significant expertise in high-performance computing and data services to the partnership. Furthermore, both organizations are united in their commitment to the FAIR data principles and fostering scientific collaboration across diverse fields. By working together, they can amplify efforts to make research data more accessible, interoperable, and reusable, strengthening the foundation for transparent and impactful global science. NCI Australia became a Candidate member of WDS in December 2025. 

Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) is a global organization dedicated to uniquely identifying all individuals involved in research, scholarship, and innovation and connecting them to their contributions across disciplines and borders. Through providing researchers with a free, unique, and persistent identifier known as the ORCID iD, they are able to link to an ORCID record containing information about their affiliations and outputs. ORCID enables interoperability between researchers, institutions, and publishers, strengthening the trustworthiness and accessibility of research data worldwide while placing the researcher at the center of its mission and values.  

Together, WDS and ORCID are well-positioned to collaborate in strengthening the global research data ecosystem by ensuring that researchers are uniquely identified and properly connected to their scholarly outputs. The ORCID iD helps research to be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) as it eases the process of finding and citing research, as well as easing the process of understanding researcher contribution. WDS and ORCID continue to promote the use of persistent identifiers to more effectively manage, share, and recognize research contributions, advancing the integrity and impact of scientific collaboration worldwide. ORCID joined the World Data System as a Partner member in February 2017. 

Giri Prakash, chief data and computing officer for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Facility (ARM), a Regular member of WDS, and lead for the Earth System Informatics and Data Discovery Section in the Biological and Environmental Systems Science Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has been elevated to senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which is the highest professional grade of IEEE. It requires extensive experience, professional maturity, and significant performance; only 10% of IEEE’s half a million members have achieved this level. Congratulations to Giri Prakash on this incredible achievement!

U.S. National Science Foundation Cyberinfrastructure (NSF CI) Compass is hosting a workshop, titled “AI Meets CI: Intelligent Infrastructure for Major & Midscale Facilities,” that will span three days, with a three-hour session each day. This workshop will feature speakers, presentations, and discussions surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) and cyberinfrastructure (CI) within the data lifecycle in facilities, cloud computing, and about societal and human intersections with AI. 

Workshop Dates: 12-14 January 2026, 12:00-15:00 ET  

The International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), an Associate member of WDS, is hosting their ICSTI Impact Forum “Unlocking Value: AI for Enhanced Metadata in STI,” a virtual webinar, for their members and guests. 

The speakers will address opportunities for AI-driven metadata, analyze emerging trends, and present practical use-cases. This forum will give attendees the opportunity to gain insights into the future of STI metadata and engage in discussions with experts and fellow ICSTI members. 

Forum Date: 22 January 2026 at 15:00 GMT 

For more information, email addie.cox@icsti.org  

The Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) Association, a community that includes a variety of information science professionals that represent a wide range of STEM disciplines, social sciences, and humanities, is hosting their RDAP Summit 2026 virtually on 13-16 April 2026. The summit theme is “Practical, Personalized, Impactful: Research Data in the Real World.” 

Registration for the summit will open in mid-to-late January 2026. Registration costs can be found on their website.  

For questions, email rdapsummit@rdapassociation.org  

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 Group on Earth Observations is hosting its 2026 GEO Symposium and GEO-21 Plenary from 26-28 May 2026 in Geneva, Switzerland. The theme of this plenary is “Investing in Earth Intelligence for a Resilient Future.”  

This symposium will focus on stimulating critical investment and action needed to support viable, scalable, and inclusive Earth Intelligence (EI) solutions across sectors. The program will feature user stories that demonstrate the value of EI in solving real-world problems, highlight open data and open knowledge as the foundation to create EI solutions, benchmark best practices in co-designing products and services, foster new partnerships through collaboration agreements and expressions of interest, and mobilize investments that benefit users and GEO Work Programme activities alike. 

Registration Closes: 31 March 2026 

The 30th International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR) conference, titled “The Bioeconomy Transformation in Transition: Past Successes, Current Challenges, and Future Prospects,” will take place in Ravello, Italy, 7-10 July 2026, celebrating three decades of pioneering research and global dialogue. Recognized for its influential role in advancing the field—47 of the top 50 articles in a landmark 2014 collection were first presented at ICABR—the event will convene leading experts to discuss innovation, policy, and progress in biotechnology and agricultural development. This year’s program features keynote addresses from distinguished figures such as Nobel Laureate Dr. Riccardo Valentini and experts from IFPRI, Wageningen University, and Carnegie Sciences, along with panels on scientific integrity, R&D funding, and international treaty frameworks.  

Early Bird Registration Deadline: 30 April 2026 

Visit the ICPSR website to learn more about International Love Data Week 2026 and get inspiration for ILDW activities.

The Research Data Alliance is hosting its 26th Plenary Meeting with the theme “Data Continuity for Research Resilience,” from 16-20 March 2026. This plenary will be held online and will include collaborative sessions that allow attendees to explore strategies for building robust data infrastructures, preserving research outputs, and ensuring data remains accessible, regardless of the challenges. 

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 International Science Council is offering three new opportunities to engage in the 5th International Polar Year (IPY-5): the global effort to advance polar research and cooperation. The engagement opportunities are:  

The International Science Council has appointed a Steering Group to lead its Social Science Matters Program, which aims to strengthen the role and visibility of social sciences and humanities in sustainability policy. Community members interested in contributing can join the Expert Network by completing the online form on the ISC website. Participation offers opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and advancing social science engagement in policy discussions. 

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 

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 

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is accepting nominations for the Sarah Jones Award – 2026 Edition. Nominees should be individuals who have demonstrated an exceptional contribution to fostering collaboration in Open Science. The impact can be organizational, community-based, or at the individual level. All nominees are welcome, not just members of the RDA community. However, a demonstration of a contribution to the RDA community is of importance.   

Submission Deadline: 14 June 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. 

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