(Apologies for possible cross-posting)

Call for Papers OPAL2026

2^nd Workshop on ODRL and Beyond: Practical Applications and Challenges for Policy-Based Access and Usage Control (OPAL 2026) in conjunction with ESWC2026
Workshop Website: https://opal-workshop.github.io/2026-2nd-edition/ 
Workshop Date: 10th-11th of May 2026
Paper Submission:

●      Abstracts (optional but recommended): 24th of February 2026

●      Full Papers: 3rd (extended) 13th of March 2026 (AoE Time)

Workshop Overview

The OPAL Workshop focuses on exploring the practical applications, challenges, and future directions for policy-based access and usage control using, but not only, the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) and other policy languages. As a W3C Recommendation, ODRL plays a pivotal role in enabling ethical, transparent, and legally compliant data sharing. Nevertheless, contributions based on related languages and not simply ODRL-centric are also welcome.

The workshop provides a venue for researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders to engage in scientific discourse, share innovative applications, and present lessons learned from implementing policy-based solutions and approaches in various scenarios. Discussions will include topics such as data governance, trust, compliance, and the integration of emerging technologies like Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance policy-based frameworks.

Topics of Interest

We welcome contributions related, but not limited, to the following topics:

●      Data Governance and Management: Centralized and decentralized Knowledge Graphs.

●      Policy Enforcement: Practical challenges and conflict resolution in real-world applications.

●      Semantic Standards: Comparative analysis of ODRL with other standards for rights and usage management.

●      LLM-Driven Innovations: Applications of LLMs for policy reasoning, validation, and generation.

●      User Preferences: Formalization of organizational and individual data-sharing preferences.

●      Compliance Challenges: Trust and ethical considerations in open and distributed ecosystems.

●      Practical Implementations: Lessons learned, tools, and innovative applications using policies.

●      Policy languages and models: approaches for regulating the behaviour of autonomous agents in open systems. 

Submission Guidelines

Submissions must be in PDF, formatted in the style of the CEUR template. Please, share your contribution before the deadline through the EasyChair platform. The accepted contributions will be published in the proceedings of the workshop. Each accepted paper needs to be presented by one of the authors at the workshop.

Contribution Types:

●      Regular Papers (15 pages): submissions accepted include either research or resource papers

●      Short Papers (8 pages): submissions accepted include either research or resource papers. Exceptional articles could be potentially extended for the proceedings.

●      Use Case papers (8 pages): these papers must present and explain a policy-based scenario

●      Minute of Madness or position papers (1-2 pages)

Important Dates

●      Abstract Submission (optional): 24th of February 2026

●      Full Paper Submission: 3rd 13th of March 2026 (AoE Time) (extended)

●      Acceptance Notification: 31st of March 2026

●      Camera-Ready Submission: 1st of April 2026

●      Workshop: 10th-11th May 2026

Organizing Committee

●      Dr. Andrea Cimmino Arriaga (contact person), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain.

●      Dr. Nicoletta Fornara, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland.

●      Dr. Victor Rodriguez Doncel, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain.

●      Dr. Beatriz Esteves, Ghent University, Belgium.

More news at: https://opal-workshop.github.io/2026-2nd-edition/