As part of its mandate for communication and stakeholder engagement, the SRDSN will organize a two-day international conference in fall this year.

• Date: Thursday and Friday, 19 and 20 November 2026
• Place: Gurten in Bern

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

[Download and read the full Call for Proposals.]

Research Data in Practice - What is the state-of-the-art?

The Swiss Research Data Support Network (SRDSN) invites open research data specialists, data stewards, research software engineers, and researchers who work with research data and develop research software to submit proposals for our upcoming conference. The conference with the title “Research Data in practice - what is the state-of-the-art?” aims to bridge the gap between local operational challenges and global strategic initiatives. 

We seek contributions that explore best practices for support services, the professionalization of data stewards and research software engineers, navigating the rise of artificial intelligence within data management, as well as the development of robust infrastructures that balance openness with security. 

Join us to discuss how we can collectively foster reproducible and responsible science through sustainable institutional commitment.

We invite submissions related to (but not limited to) the following areas:

1. Research data support in practice
2. Research Software
3. Research data professionals as data stewards, data managers, software engineers
4. Open Science & Open Research Data
5. FAIR data & quality
6. Research data infrastructures
7. Policies, compliance & funder requirements
8. Artificial Intelligence & Data-Intensive Research

Download the full Call for Proposals for more details.

Submission formats

We encourage a variety of formats—practical, interactive, and open to experience reports:

• Presentations  (10 min)
• Lightning Talks (3 min)
• Posters (A0 format)
• Workshops (60–120 min): hands-on sessions, methods, training concepts, toolchains

How to submit 

Please submit an abstract via ConfTool [https://www.conftool.pro/rdc2026] including:

• Title
• Abstract (approx. 200–400 words; for workshops also include agenda, methods & learning objectives)
• Included in the abstract: Target audience (e.g. data stewards, research software engineers, infrastructure teams, researchers…)
• Optional: links to tool/repository/materials (if available)

Please select in your ConfTool submission also:

• 3–5 keywords
• Format (talk/lightning talk/poster/workshop)
• Please indicate who will present (not more than 2 presenters) 

Submission deadline: Sunday 7 June 2026 (extended from 31 May 2026)

Language

The conference language will be English. 

Open Access Policy

By submitting a proposal, you agree that your poster and/or presentation will be made available online on Zenodo under an open licence (CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-SA).

Code of Conduct

We are committed to a respectful and inclusive environment. The SRDSN’s Code of Conduct applies. 

Are you interested in helping us out? We are still looking for help for the preparation but also during the conference itself. Please reach out to the Program committee at conference@researchdatasupport.ch.

Contact: conference@researchdatasupport.ch

Organization Committee

• Alain Borel (EPFL)
• Carmen Jambé (UNIL)
• Daniela Subotic (DaSCH)
• Floriane Muller (UniGe)
• Grégoire Rossier (SIB)
• Jennifer Dean (FORS)
• Jennifer Morger (UniBe)
• Penelope Weissman (FORS)

Program Committee

• Andreas Ferus (Universität Wien, Austria)
• Chiara Gabella (EPFL)
• Christine Krebs (UniBe)
• Constance Delamadeleine (HES-SO)
• Dirk Verdicchio (UniBe)
• Elena Giglia (Università di Torino, Italy)
• Fabian Felder (Lib4RI)
• Federico Grasso Toro (UniBe)
• Gilles Mathieu (Ministry of Higher Education, Research, France)
• Matthias Landwehr (Universität Konstanz, Germany)
• Melanie Röthlisberger (UZH)
• Olga Churakova (UniBe)
• Silke Bellanger (UniBas)