Championing Data: Data Professionals at the Nexus
Call for Proposals
IASSIST 2026 invites you to join us for a virtual conference on June 2 - June 5, 2026 to engage, connect, and collaborate around the theme of Championing Data. IASSIST (the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology) is an international organization of professionals working with information technology and data services to support research and teaching.
As IASSIST goes virtual for 2026, we are building an engaging array of events and formats to maximize our shared time at the conference. Through dynamic sessions, collaborative discussions, and community-driven activities, we’ll share our expertise and build connections to advance our collective data-centered work at our institutions and organizations. IASSIST 2026 will feature ample semi-structured time, with attendee-selected themes for discussion and idea exchange, gathered at the start of the conference, as well as unstructured segments with breakout opportunities to capture the interstitial moments at these events. Social hours, trivia and participatory games will round out the experience to help build connections and invigorate our collective work.
We welcome submissions for the conference structured time: papers, presentations, panels, roundtables, and other novel virtual meeting formats that embrace our conference theme, Championing Data: Data Professionals at the Nexus.
We are seeking out information on the importance of data in our world, from its collection to its ethics and governance; from making sense of data to aiding others in doing the same; and modes and methods of protecting and championing data in an era of disruption and innovation.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- Data rescue / data advocacy
- Data stories – data usage, digitization efforts, archival treasures
- Data literacy and training
- Data management
- Data discovery, access, and licensing
- Data consultation and librarianship
- Data ethics and governance
- Data security, restrictions, and actions
- Data documentation and metadata
- CARE / FAIR data principles
- Partnerships and collaboration
- Original data collection efforts
- Technology, platforms and tools for data collection, management, and analysis
- Large data and high performance computing
- Generative AI – training, ethics, licensing
Presentation Formats
For this virtual conference we are specifically accepting submissions in two formats: presentation and block.
- Presentations will be allotted 10 minutes to give a talk, summarize a paper, or walk listeners through a poster. Presentations will be grouped with others to make up an hour session (including Q&A).
- A block will be assigned a full hour (a complete session) and can take the format of a panel, roundtable discussion, or anything else you’re thinking about – creativity encouraged!
Notes
We are collecting “home timezone” with abstract proposals to allow for flexible scheduling. The final schedule will be based on submissions received, and will strive to keep presentations during “waking hours”.
Each conference day is estimated to have 4-6 hours of programming.
We are currently accepting submissions for structured time (see above) and will follow up closer to the conference with those registered to generate unconference/“birds of a feather”-style discussions.
IASSIST Quarterly is facilitating a paper competition as normal; please submit your paper abstracts as “presentations”, which is our catch-all format for 10 minute windows of content.
Important Dates
The deadline for all submissions is Friday December 19, 2025.
We request that submitters limit themselves to one proposal per format type.
Decisions regarding submissions will be sent out by email early-February 2026.
Submit a Proposal
The Call for proposals and workshops, with a link to the submission form, is available at Openconf.
Submit a Proposal
Questions about presentation submissions may be sent to the Program Committee (Michael Beckstrand, Ashley Jester, Meghan Goodchild, Jim Church) at programme ( at ) lists.iassistdata.org.
About IASSIST
The International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST) is an international organization of professionals working with information technology and data services to support research and teaching.
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