20 November 2025

The World Data System extends its heartfelt gratitude to Claire Rye, co-chair of our Early Career Researchers Network and regional champion for International Data Week (IDW) 2025. 

Claire’s multifaceted contributions exemplify the spirit of innovation and collaboration that drives our ECR community: 

Claire’s tireless efforts have elevated the visibility of early career researchers, fostered new connections, and inspired future leaders in the data science world. We thank Claire for her brilliant work and continued commitment to building an inclusive, vibrant community. 

Please join us in celebrating Claire’s achievements—her leadership sets a powerful example for all data science professionals. 

The World Data System was honored to present the 2025 Data Stewardship Award to Youhua Ran at International Data Week 2025. As a geographer specializing in permafrost mapping, Dr. Ran has systematically compiled a global dataset of ground-based permafrost observations and, through extensive collaboration and integration with remote sensing, developed new high-quality maps for the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau and the Northern Hemisphere. His work provides a vital foundation for understanding permafrost distribution, assessing environmental changes, and supporting ecological conservation and engineering planning. Dr. Ran’s leadership in open data sharing and quality assurance—especially through the HiWATER project, national standards development, and service as an expert reviewer—has set new benchmarks for geographic science data stewardship in China. 

We were also delighted to finally present the Data Stewardship Award to Libby Liggins, originally awarded in 2019 but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and office transitions. Dr. Liggins’ commitment to ethical data stewardship is exemplified by her integration of best practices, tools, and community infrastructures into her research in marine evolutionary ecology: 

 “I now see data stewardship and the advancement of tools, infrastructures, and community practices in aid of ethical data stewardship, as a part of my professional research practice alongside marine evolutionary ecology.” 

Congratulations to both awardees for their visionary leadership and transformative impact on global data stewardship! 

Now it’s your turn!

Applications are open for the 2026 Data Stewardship Award.

If you or someone you know has made outstanding contributions to advancing open, ethical, and impactful data stewardship, we encourage you to apply or nominate a colleague today.

Submission Deadline: 16 January 2026

The CLARIN Technical Centers Committee approved the first CLARIN Data Citation Guidelines this September. These guidelines were developed by Martin Matthiesen and Jakob Lenardič. These guidelines have been created to give CLARIN centers and researchers publishing language resources in CLARIN repositories a clear guide for publishing resources in a consistent way.

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is hosting their last information session on “Global Priorities for Agentic AI Development” 27 November 2025. This session will be 45 minutes with the following agenda:

There are two ways to participate in this event:  

Sense about Science is hosting a Standing Up for Science workshop and applications to attend are open. At this workshop, Early Career Researchers can attend the following:  

Workshop Date: 28 November 2025 

Choice is hosting a webinar, “Data” and Indigenous Studies: Entry Points for Academic Libraries, on 16 December 2025 at 14:00 ET/11:00 PT. The session will provide foundational background on how the tools, practices, and methodologies developed and used by librarians can be applied to Indigenous-focused research and knowledge organization, drawing from a Canadian context with broader applicability.  

Participants will explore the topic from three perspectives: 

Register now to attend the live event or to receive the webinar recording.  

Join WDS Network member Data Curation Network (DCN) for their CURATE(D) Fundamentals Workshop 16 December 2025 from 13:00-16:00 EDT. This workshop uses the DCN CURATED steps to engage participants in a peer-to-peer learning environment on data curation practices. In the workshop, participants implement their skills against a real-world dataset for a unique hands-on experience. This workshop is also open to other information professionals outside of the DCN. 

Learning objectives: 

The 21st International Conference on Open Repositories (OR2026) will be held online 8-11 June 2026 with the theme: “Open to All? Repositories at the Intersection of People, Practice, and Emerging Technologies." This conference will explore how repositories sustain open knowledge exchange while advancing FAIR principles, preservation, community building, and respond to the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies.   

The conference particularly welcomes proposals aligned to the overall theme, but also on other administrative, organizational, or practical topics related to open digital repositories, including the following sub-themes:  

Submission categories include workshops, panels, roundtable discussions, presentations, and pre-recorded lightning talks.   

Submission Deadline: 11 January 2026 

A small registration fee to attendees from "high income" countries to cover the online platform costs is planned. Registration for all other attendees will be free. 

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. 

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. All submissions should follow the Special Collection’s template guidelines. JOHD maintains an open access policy under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, supporting the broad dissemination of knowledge while allowing authors to retain copyright and share their work widely. 

Submission Deadline: 30 January 2026  

The Language Documentation and Archiving Conference 2026, being 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 the conference 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.  

Abstract Submission Deadline: 1 March 2026

OpenCitations is inviting supporters, partner institutions, users, and anyone who has come across OpenCitations to take their community survey. This survey is an opportunity to share your experience with OpenCitations, what works, what could be improved, and what you would like to see in the future.  

Your feedback will help OpenCitations:  

If you would like to subscribe to the first issue of the OpenCitation Newsletter, visit their website.

Frontiers is accepting papers about the following topic: Linking Knowledge Across Borders: Science Diasporas and Global South Development. Papers submitted should explore the mechanisms, conditions, and impacts of engaging scientific diasporas in the Global South. A more detailed list of possible topics can be found on Frontiers’ website.  

Manuscript Summary Submission Deadline: 29 November 2025 

STEM for BRITAIN is a poster competition for early-stage researchers which will be held in the Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom on 17 March 2026. This event invites early-stage researchers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to present their work to Members of both Houses, fostering direct engagement between academia and policymakers. Posters submitted should fall into one of the following categories: biological and biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, mathematical studies, or physics.  

This competition includes:  

Deadline for Submissions: 24 November 2025 

The NISO Plus Scholarship Award provides opportunities for emerging and mid-career professionals from diverse backgrounds to actively participate in shaping the information ecosystem. Candidates working across this area, such as librarians, publishers, service and tech providers, and more, are encouraged to submit their applications.  

Awardees will receive the following benefits:  

Recipients will be recognized in the NISO Plus blog and in NISO’s monthly newsletter. In addition, up to three applicants will receive funding for travel and accommodations for the February 2026 annual conference in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. 

Applications will be reviewed by the NISO Plus Scholarships Committee, which includes previous scholarship awardees and established members of the scholarly communications community, alongside NISO staff and board members. 

Deadline: 24 November 2025 

Notifications Sent Out: 19 December 2025 

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is looking for instructors for their Master of Applied Data Sciences (MADS) sections.  

Minimum Education/Experience Requirements:  

Earned doctorate or terminal degree (or foreign equivalent) in the same or closely related discipline as the course taught. In lieu of an earned terminal degree in an appropriate field, instructors may be qualified by professional experience or by a combination of education and experience. 

Position Responsibilities:  

Deadline to Apply: 30 November 2025 

The Clemson University Libraries’ research travel award promotes scholarly research undertaken in Clemson University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives (SCA). This award provides up to $5,000 USD in financial support for a master’s or doctoral graduate student, or an established scholar, to visit and conduct research within the SCA. The award can only be used towards travel and accommodation in Clemson for the purpose of researching collections in SCA.  

Deadline to Apply: 14 December 2025 

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.  

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 . 

Design your own fully funded research stay at a leading EU data management institution with ATRIUM’s travel grants. Travel, accommodations, and subsistence are covered. Explore the list of participating host organizations and start planning your research exchange on ATRIUM’s website.  

Deadline: 31 December 2025 

Riga Technical University has launched a new MOOC learning platform. MOOC, or Massive Online Open Course, is a collection of online learning courses that can be taken at the learner’s own pace. This platform offers courses in AI, data spaces, digital semantics, machine learning, and machine translation. Registration for courses is required.  

A working group from Academic Data Science Alliance’s (ASDA) 2025 US Leadership Summit has created a practical guide to help faculty, researchers, and students get started with data-intensive computing projects.

E Source develops groundbreaking data science applications that change the way utilities understand and manage their networks. They tackle challenging projects like forecasting the impact of severe weather on utility networks and optimizing vegetation management strategies. To conduct these projects, they leverage a combination of machine-learning models, inference-based statistics, and remote-sensing applications. Each project or product is collaboratively developed in-house by a data science team of diverse professional backgrounds and domain expertise. They are looking to add expertise in their applied meteorology area. 

Responsibilities:  

This role will be 100% remote, but occasional travel may be required. 

The Civil Environmental & Infrastructure Portfolio at Leidos currently has an opening for an Environmental Data Manager. This position can be fully remote or hybrid working out of their Reston, Virginia, United States office. 

Responsibilities: 

Applicants should demonstrate excellent written and verbal communication skills, attention to detail, and be comfortable working in a team environment. Strong organizational skills are essential. 

Sign up to receive monthly WDS updates and news.

Have something to share in our next newsletter? Send us the information below!