The conference took place from 11th to 13th June in the beautiful coastal town of Split and was co-organised by the Croatian data archive CROSSDA. The first day was dedicated to the CESSDA Service Provider Forum (SPF), where all CESSDA members were invited to share updates about ongoing work and present as well as future collaborations. DANS attended the SPF as the Dutch Service Provider (SP), and the SPF is always a special event as it brings together people from all over Europe. In addition to representatives from the other 21 SPs, this time guests from CESSDA partner countries were also invited, so we welcomed representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania.
The SPF exchanged information about CESSDA Services, such as the CESSDA Data Catalogue and training resources, and discussed updates from the CESSDA Key Topic Working Groups (WG). DANS is involved in the Dataverse WG and the WG assessing sensitive data, both of which were discussed lively. In the afternoon, there was an opportunity to take a deep dive into data citation practices during the CESSDA Expert Seminar.
Between sessions, there was plenty of time to enjoy the sunny weather and chat with colleagues during walks through the old town or along the shore next to the conference centre, which complemented the knowledge exchange and discussions of the conference itself.
Science Day on 12th June allowed for more in-depth discussions on various topics. In addition to the CESSDA members and partners, other organisations joined the day, including representatives from ministries and policymakers. The day featured invited speakers from other SSH ERICS, OECD, and CODATA, bringing together various perspectives. Sessions included discussions on (metadata) interoperability, sensitive data, and data sharing in challenging times. We revisited the response from the social science community during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role CESSDA and the data archives played in making crucial social sciences data available. A powerful presentation was given by Olga Zhmurko (Kyiv Data Archive/CSDA), showcasing the collaborative efforts to archive Ukrainian data and make it available for reuse in times of war. The dedication of the people involved in the CESSDA community, as shown through this and other talks and discussions, is likely what made the event so engaging and connective.
The third and last day included workshops open for all participants alongside the General Assembly meeting. The first and longest workshop of the day focused on the role of AI in CESSDA SPs, showcasing various applications of AI at the local institutes, including work done at DANS and within the ODISSEI portal. As many of us acknowledge the potential as well as the ethical challenges of AI, collaboration and exchanges proves extremely valuable to use new technologies in the benefit of open science. The day continued with sessions around the CESSDA Question Bank, the SSHOC Marketplace and a practical session on reproducibility using Mybinder and Jupyter notebooks.
The full programme of the conference is available here.
