Solid Symposium 2026: call for session proposals

To all in the Solid community:

The dates are set for the 4th Solid Symposium in London: 30 April and 1 May.. Please save the dates!

At this stage, we are soliciting session proposals. See the call for sessions below. As in previous years, sessions are organised independently by the session organisers, according to their own vision.

There is a tight turn around for session proposals (deadline 2 November AoE). This is to maximise the time that session organisers have for soliciting their own content. We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Ross, Beatriz and Jesse
Program co-chairs


============== CALL FOR SESSIONS =================
SoSy 2026: Call for Sessions @ 4th Solid Symposium
https://easychair.org/cfp/SoSy2026

City St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom
London, UK, April 30-May 1, 2026

Submission link
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sosy26

Submission deadline: November 2, 2025
Late submission deadline (with late notification): November 16, 2025
==================================================

The 4th Solid Symposium (SoSy 2026) will be held in London, United Kingdom, on 30 April and 1 May 2026. The venue is City St George's campus, and the symposium will feature a fireside conversation with Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

The Solid Symposium consists of a series of sessions proposed by you, the Solid community, as well as a curated programme of keynotes.

This call is for session proposals. As with previous editions of the Symposium, each session is organised independently by the proposers of the session. This includes defining the session theme, confirming speakers, and any other activities, such as gathering any slides or other contributions like demos and talks. The symposium will provide a central space for the sessions, featuring facilities for presentations, as well as coffee breaks, lunch, and a social event, alongside a broader programme of keynotes.

There may also be some coordination between sessions, such as a joint poster session.

The symposium provides a platform to discuss the state of the art of Solid and its mission. This includes sharing the latest tools, success stories, lessons learned, and exciting visions for the future. Sosy2026 aims to showcase insights from both multi-disciplinary scientific perspectives and industry. Satellite events, such as a hackathon, are planned in London earlier in the week.

Submission Guidelines
---------------------

We are now inviting Session Proposals. A Session Proposal describes a session of 90 mins which will be organised around a theme related to Solid. The symposium will feature at most 10 sessions, 90 minutes each, scheduled over the two days.
Sessions can take any form, including talks, panel discussions, posters, workshops, hackathons, networking sessions, etc.

In the submission, please provide the following details:

1. The title and short abstract of the session to be published online.
2. The (co-)organiser(s) of the session and their affiliation(s) to be published online, and contact details shared only with the organisers for practical arrangements.
3. A description of the session proposed including a preliminary agenda, and, where appropriate, potential speakers.
4. Explanation of how your proposal is related to Solid and what the intended audience will walk away with.
5. Indicate which track you feel your proposed session is best suited for (industry, research, or open source).
6. Other considerations, such as if the duration or presentation requirements differ from the norm (e.g., a collaborative workshop, a double-length session, a hybrid online session, demo booths, etc., feel free to be creative!).

Session organisers are fully responsible for their own session, its contents and its organisation, the symposium as a whole provides the setting and the room.

Please upload your session proposal, max one page, here:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sosy26

Timeline
1. Early deadline for session proposal submissions: 2 November 2025
2. Early notification of acceptance: 7 November 2025
3. Late deadline for session proposal submissions: 16 November 2025
4. Late notification of acceptance: 20 November 2025
5. Q&A session for session organisers: 26 November 2025

There are two submission deadlines, so that sessions with time-sensitive planning such as calls for papers can proceed early with organisation.

Accepted sessions can be planned in detail as soon as they are accepted, in collaboration with the programme committee. We expect that session organisers provide a landing webpage, set up by the session organisers and to be linked to from the main SoSy 2026 website, with the session details by 15 January 2026. A programme for sessions should be confirmed by the end of March 2026. Information video calls for coordination between session organisers and the programme committee will be organised on a monthly basis in the run-up to the symposium.

Who should submit?
------------------
Researchers and academics from any discipline
Industry actors and implementers from any domain
Open source developers and community
End users wanting to share their experience with the Solid ecosystem

What kind of session can I submit?
----------------------------------
The standard submission is for a 90-minute session with presentations, papers, demos, etc. solicited and curated by you independently.
Nonstandard sessions such as a collaborative workshop, a double-length session, a hybrid online session, demo booths, etc.. Feel free to be creative!

How will submissions be evaluated?
----------------------------------
The programme committee will assess session proposals on their merits, quality, relationship to Solid, and balance with other sessions.

What happens if my proposal is accepted?
----------------------------------------
Session organisers are fully responsible for their own session, its contents, and its practical organisation. This includes defining the session theme, confirming speakers, and any other activities, such as gathering any slides or other contributions, such as demos and talks.

The symposium as a whole provides the setting and the room, a central space for the sessions, featuring facilities for presentations, as well as coffee breaks, lunch, and a social event, alongside a broader programme of keynotes.

Will I and the others coming to my session have to pay for the conference?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
There will be a registration fee for participants covering operational costs.

Topic suggestions
-----------------
Open source Solid projects
Applications of Solid in industry
Medical personal data in Solid
Self-publishing via Solid
Data Spaces in relation to Solid
Digital Wallets in relation to Solid
Legal aspects of Solid, such as data protection compliance and data governance
Security and privacy aspects of Solid
Human-centric design and evaluations of Solid applications
Evolving Web Standards behind Solid
This is a non-exhaustive list of topics!

For further ideas, see the sessions that ran in previous editions.
https://solid.ti.rw.fau.de/public/2023/solid-symposium/#sessions 1st Solid Symposium 2023. 30-31 March 31 2023, Nuremberg, Germany.
https://events.vito.be/sosy2024/pages/program 2nd Solid Symposium 2024, 2-3 May 2024, Leuven, Belgium.
https://sosy2025.eu/Sessions/ 3rd Solid Symposium 2025, 24-25 April 2025, Leiden, Netherlands.

Committees
==========

Programme Committee
-------------------
Virginia Balseiro, Dokie.li
Niko Bonnieure, NextGraph, France
Christoph Braun, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
Bart Buelens, VITO, Belgium
Sarven Capadisli, Dokie.li, W3C Technical Architecture Group
Juan G. Diaz Ochoa, PerMediQ GmbH, Germany
Beatriz Esteves, Ghent University, Belgium (co-chair)
Sameer Gahlot, German Indian Business Alliance, India
Kimberly Garcia, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Elfi Goesaert, VITO, Belgium
Andreas Harth, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany
Ross Horne, University of Strathclyde, UK (co-chair)
Ernesto Jimenez-Ruiz, City St George's, University of London, UK
Tobias Kaefer, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
Viivi Lahteenoja, The MyData Company, Finland; University of Helsinki, Finland
Noel De Martin, Spain
Jackson Morgan, SetMeld, US
Harshvardhan Pandit, AI Accountability Lab (AIAL), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Mirjam van Reisen, Leiden, Netherlands
Arianna Rossi, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
Chang Sun, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Emma Thwaites, The Open Data Institute, UK
Thanassis Tiropanis, University of Southampton, UK
Edgar Whitley, LSE, UK
Jesse Wright, University of Oxford; The Open Data Institute, UK (co-chair)
Rui Zhao, University of Oxford, UK

Organising committee
--------------------
Local organisers: The Open Data Institute (The ODI) https://theodi.org/
General chair: Ross Horne, University of Strathclyde, UK

Steering committee
------------------
Rob Brennan, University College Dublin, Ireland
Bart Buelens, VITO, Belgium
Andreas Harth, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany
Ross Horne, University of Strathclyde, UK
Tobias Kaefer, Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie, Germany
Mirjam van Reisen, Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands
Hans Stettmeier, Strategic Management and Alliances Consulting GmbH, Germany
Thanassis Tiropanis, University of Southampton, UK
Angelo Veltens, codecentric AG, Germany

Invited Speakers
----------------
The symposium features a fireside chat with Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

There will also be a program of distinguished keynotes from experts on Solid, to be announced.

Venue
=====
The conference will be held at City St George's. The address is Clerkenwell campus, City St George's, University of London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, United Kingdom.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/W3C8mLaXqqhcw7n4A

Contact
=======
Please do not hesitate to contact the general chair or program committee co-chairs with any questions on info@sosy2026.eu