Summary

Introduction 

The 19th International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC25) took place in The Hague from 17-19 of February 2025. The conference theme this year was Twenty years back, twenty years forward: lessons and directions in digital curation. 

About IDCC 

The International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) is an established annual event with a unique place in the digital curation community, reaching out to individuals, organisations and institutions across all disciplines and domains involved in curating data and providing an opportunity to get together with like-minded data practitioners to discuss policy and practice. 

• Programme Statistics
• Attendee Statistics
• Eventory
• Workshop Day
• Social Events
• IDCC25 Sponsors

Programme 

This year saw over 100 contributions to the programme in the form of 21 papers, 40 lightning talks and 46 posters, an increase of 13 contributions. 31 countries, a testament to the international make up of this conference, were represented in the programme this year, something we are keen to continue for future IDCC events.  

The theme for this year’s conference was: “Twenty years back, twenty years forward: lessons and directions in digital curation”.  In terms of submission topics, the theme “Curation infrastructure” dominated the programme. Of these curation infrastructure sub-themes, “Tools, systems and services that in in development” featured in over 40% of proposals. These topics were selected during the initial call for submission phase.

Pictured left to right, Martha Whitehead, Harvard University (left), Dr Kirsty Merrett, University of Bristol (middle), Evelien Dhollander, Ghent University (right).

Best Paper, Paper Runner Up and Best Poster Winners

The paper awards were decided by the Programme Committee based on the scores and comments of the programme reviewers.

The award for best paper this year was a close decision. The runner-up engaged with the conference theme by reflecting on the past 25 years of digital library infrastructure and how these inform current developments and preparations for the future. 

The winning paper, however, was felt to show a good example of agility and adaptation to changes in research support, research data management, and digital curation, and fits perfectly into the conference theme. It set out a process for reforming research policies and supporting an open research culture in an institution, particularly regarding community involvement in the process. It outlined steps taken for doing so in a clear fashion that can be used by others facing a similar task. 

Best Paper  

Best paper: Dr Kirsty Merrett, University of Bristol, for “Agents of Change: The Journey of Updating an RDM Policy, and How It Can Act as a Catalyst for Reimagining Open Research Policy” [https://zenodo.org/records/15012855] 

Paper Runner Up 

Martha Whitehead and Stuart Snydman, Harvard University, "From Building a First-Generation Digital Library Infrastructure to Reimagining Discovery" [https://zenodo.org/records/14985094]   

The best poster award was voted for by participants at the conference. The winning poster received 31 votes, a margin of 13 against the second placed entry. 

Best Poster Winner 

Evelien Dhollander and Kevin Leonard, “From Idealism to Pragmatism: The Data Curation Journey at Ghent University” [https://zenodo.org/records/14781623]  

Programme Contributions: 

• Papers: 21
• Lightning Talks: 40
• Posters: 46

How to access slides and posters 

Paper and lightning talk slides and posters can be accessed via the IDCC25 Conference Materials Zenodo page.

Attendee statistics

We are proud to be part of an international community. This was reflected in our attendees, as we hosted 237 attendees in person (82%) and 51 online (18%), representing 50 countries across four continents. The conference, held in The Hague, saw the majority of participants travel from European countries, comprising 74% of the total attendees. Seventeen percent of participants attended from North America, including 33 from the United States, while 8% of attendees were from Asia, with 17 participants joining from Japan. 

Top 10 countries represented: 

• Netherlands, 44 
• Great Britain, 43 
• USA, 33 
• Germany, 17 
• Japan, 17 
• Belgium, 11 
• China, 10 
• Canada, 7 
• Finland, 7 
• France, 6 

First time attendees

Interestingly as an established event that has built a strong community over the past 20 years, we have continued to welcome new attendees with 56% of the attendees joining us for the first time. 

Organisational background

Historically most participants attending IDCC come from a University/Higher education sector. This was the case this year as well with 59.1% of the attendees representing this sector. Our other participants represented a range of other sectors including: 

• 10.1% Research and Development Organisations 
• 9.8% Libraries, Archieves and Information Services 
• 5.6% Data and Content Repositories  
• 5.2% Government and Public Sector Agencies (National, Regional, and Local Government Bodies, Public Sector Institutions) 
• 3.1% Technology and Software Providers 
• 2.1% Commercial/Private Sector Organisations 
• 1.7% Professional Associations and Networks 
• 1.4% Other 
• 1.0% Cultural Heritage Institutions (Museums, Galleries, Historical Archives) 
• 0.3% Funding Agencies 
• 0.3% Independant Consultants 

Eventory 

Having previously used Whova for the past two conferences (IDCC22 and IDCC24), this year we opted to used Eventory. Eventory supported the hybrid delivery of the conference featuring a number of virtual only sessions allowing virtual access to attendees unable to attend in-person and even those stuck in traffic on their way to join in-person. 

Virtual sessions for online attendees only: 

• IDCC a history for newcomers by Laurence Horton, PC chair, an opportunity for new (and previous) conference attendees a chance to learn more about the history of IDCC 
• You’re invited to International Data Week 2025, a sponsor led session by one of our bronze sponsors, IDW, gave an overview of their upcoming event in October 
• Speed networking, a session on day two hosted by one of our DCC colleagues

Workshop Day 

Overview 

On Monday, 17 February there were 6 workshops organised as part of IDCC25 which were attended by around 150 in-person attendees across the following topics: 

Workshop 1 - Embedding sensitive data management best practice in institutional workflows, University of Bristol  

Workshop 2 - Open Science in Action: Building Skills, Crafting FAIR Resources, and Recognizing Achievement, Skills4EOSC

Workshop 3 - Building a CoreTrustSeal community, DANS & FAIR-IMPACT  

Workshop 4 - Supporting communities in implementing FAIR principles for Open Science, FAIR-IMPACT 

Workshop 5 - Creating communities around best practices and common challenges in data – the role of data stewards, Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI)  

Workshop 6 - Future-Proofing Data Management: Interactive Workshop on DMPonline's Progress and Path Forward, DMPonline  

We would like to extend our thanks to all the workshop organisers and attendees for their time on the first day of the conference. More information on the workshops can be found on the Workshop subpage. 

Social Events 

Pre-conference Drinks Reception

Ahead of the main conference start, we hosted a pre-conference drinks reception held on the evening of Monday 17 February 2025 at Museon Omniversum. The successful opening saw 100 participants join us in the stunning venue.

Conference Dinner  

The Conference Dinner was held at the Kasteel de Wittenburg at the end of the first main conference day on Tuesday 18 February. Situated within a stunning castle that dates back to 1901, 90 attendees were welcomed by a pianist, who provided background music throughout the evening.

A huge thank you to all of our sponsors for supporting IDCC25.

Silver Sponsor - RDA TIGER

RDA TIGER supports Working Groups within the Research Data Alliance (RDA) that concretely align, harmonise and standardise Open Science developments and technologies globally. The services it provides will facilitate and support coherent and consistent working group definitions and increases the impact of the key European initiatives on the global level. Learn more about the RDA TIGER via the RDA website.

Bronze Sponsor - International Data Week 2025

The Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) is proud to be delivering International Data Week 2025 in Brisbane / Meanjin, Australia. International Data Week (IDW) is a landmark event organised by the Committee on Data (CODATA) and the World Data System (WDS) of the International Science Council (ISC), and the Research Data Alliance (RDA). Find out more about the conference tickets and call for submissions via the IDW25 website.

Bronze Sponsor - Link Digital

Link Digital believe in the transformative power of data and open source technologies to drive transparency, collaboration, and accountability. As a trusted leader in open source data management solution CKAN, Link Digital specialise in building and enhancing open data portals, empowering governments, NGOs, and research institutions to make data more accessible, interoperable, and actionable. As co-stewards and experts in CKAN, they ensure that organisations can maximise the true potential of their data, building transparency, collaboration, and informed decision-making. Visit the Link Digital website to learn more about the organisation and their services. 

Check out sponsors webpage for more information on this years sponsors.

Conference Photographs

During the conference, our colleagues from the University of Edinburgh captured great images across the three days. All these pictures have been uploaded to our Flickr page.