Programme

Co-located event ‘AI in Research: Understanding trust, federation, and the user experience’

From search assistants to co-scientist systems, AI is entering research faster than we can govern it. Join this event to tackle the UX, governance, and data readiness challenges head-on. Learn more.

Co-located event ‘Tools and Networks for Enhancing Long-term Data Preservation’

Hands-on training in trustworthy data preservation, FAIR principles, and EOSC practices. Plus the chance to join two brand-new expert networks. Just 50 places. Learn more.

Co-located event ‘The Ethical Data Initiative Stakeholder Forum: Framing the Future of the Global Research Commons’

A forum on building a fairer, more ethical global research commons, bringing together top voices in data governance, funding, and policy. Two panels tackle inclusive data sharing and putting FAIR, CARE, and TRUST principles into practice. Learn more.

Wellbeing and Quiet Spaces

Available on the third floor for all attendees who need a quiet moment or space to themselves. These rooms are not for private meetings.

Registration

Collect your name badge and get checked in for RDA P27. Come early to catch up with familiar faces, meet new RDA members, and settle in before the Opening session begins.

Arrival Tea & Coffee Break

RDA for Newcomers session

New to the Research Data Alliance, or attending your first Plenary? Join this 30-minute informal session to get oriented. You will learn what RDA is, how it’s structured, and how to make the most of your three days at P27. Meet members of the RDA Secretariat team, get your questions answered, and walk away knowing exactly how to get involved.

RDA P27 Welcome Session. Research data: improving lives, advancing knowledge and driving growth

This session will kick off RDA P27 to welcome delegates to London. It will focus on the overarching importance of good research data management and sharing to our research ambitions – benefiting society and the economy while supporting collaboration, knowledge, and robust research.
Keynote Speakers: Stian Westlake (UKRI (ESRC)). LEARN MORE

Morning Tea & Coffee Break

Breakout Session 1. BoF Session – Data Quality: Towards Cross-domain Harmonisation, Provenance-aware Approaches, Uncertainty Management and Interoperable Practices

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 1.

Breakout Session 1. BoF Session – Advancing scientific use of digital twins through open science and FAIR data

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 1.

Lunch break

Breakout Session 2. BoF Session – Research Data Management Ethics

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 2.

Breakout Session 2. BoF Session – Essential Variables: case studies in FAIR commensurability and interoperability

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 2.

Afternoon Tea & Coffee Break

Poster and Drinks Reception

Kick off P27 with drinks, canapés, and the poster exhibition on the first evening. A relaxed opportunity to meet fellow delegates, sponsors, and exhibitors. One ticket is included in each P27 delegate registration.

Wellbeing and Quiet Spaces

Available on the third floor for all attendees who need a quiet moment or space to themselves. These rooms are not for private meetings.

Arrival Tea & Coffee Break

Breakout Session 3. BoF Session – Harnessing automation and AI tools to advance data curation and connect digital research infrastructures

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 3.

Breakout Session 3. BoF Session – Understanding user needs: how can research data experts learn from each other?

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 3.

Morning Tea & Coffee Break

Lunch break

Ideas Pitch Session

Pitch 1. Room 1: A national training programme for data stewards in the Netherlands – Social Sciences. Presenter – Dorien Huijser

Presents a Dutch national curriculum and certification platform for data stewards (funded by Open Science NL), built on existing European frameworks. Invites RDA community alignment; could feed into the Professionalising Data Stewardship interest group.

Pitch 1. Room 2: agriRDM: Overcoming Discipline-Specific Research Data Management Challenges in Agri-Food Research – Agricultural Sciences. Presenter – Darragh Scully

Cross-national study (Ireland, Netherlands, Germany) into why agri-food researchers don’t share data, using behavioural theory surveys and workshops. Aims to produce discipline-specific RDM guidance and policy recommendations.

Pitch 2. Room 1: Making AI Visible in Open Research – Social Sciences. Presenter – Vinay Devgan

Proposes ‘AI visibility’ as a framework (invisible / partially visible / fully disclosed AI) for making AI’s role in research decisions transparent and contestable. Proposes an interest or working group to develop vocabulary, metadata recommendations, and a governance checklist.

Pitch 2. Room 2: Beyond the Warehouse: Active State Stewardship and the Sovereign Vessels – Agricultural Sciences. Presenter – Reynold J Branche

Proposes a new data primitive, a ‘Sovereign Vessel’, where data, logic, and governance are inseparably bundled, enabling FAIR/CARE enforcement at a structural level.

Pitch 3. Room 1: FAIRER-MH: Federated AI for Equitable Mental Health Research Across African HDSS Cohorts – Social Sciences. Presenter – Bylhah Mugotitsa

Extends an existing federated infrastructure (INSPIRE Network) across HDSS sites in Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, and Ethiopia for mental health research. Proposes founding a formal RDA interest group on African Population Health Federated Data, with three defined workstreams and named partners (CODATA, LSHTM).

Pitch 3. Room 2: NeuroNose for Parkinson’s: Building the First High-Fidelity VOC Dataset for Early Detection Using AI and Advanced Sensing – Medical & Health Sciences. Presenters – Carlos Claiton Noschang Kuhn

Electronic nose platform generating VOC datasets from breath/skin for pre-symptomatic Parkinson’s detection. Combines sensor engineering, embedded acquisition, and ML-ready preprocessing. Proposes FAIR-aligned standards for sensor-derived biomedical data, with a pilot dataset as starting point, and a working group on VOC/sensor biomedical data standardisation.

Pitch 4. Room 1: Towards a Core Metadata Schema for Linguistic Data – Humanities. Presenters – Helene N. Andreassen, Philipp Conzett, Mara van der Ploeg

Proposes a working group to define a minimal shared metadata schema for linguistic research data across the many existing but fragmented standards (OLAC, IMDI, CMDI, etc.).

Pitch 4. Room 2: Fitness, Trust, and Community-Driven Data Standards: A Pilot Project – Medical & Health Sciences. Presenter – Sarah Myer

Uses a paediatric asthma case study to examine how different audiences (clinicians, caregivers, journalists, etc.) assess whether open health data is trustworthy and usable. Proposes an interest group on community-centred data reuse evaluation.

Pitch 5. Room 1: Connecting Large Research Infrastructures with PIDs in the AI Era – Engineering & Technology. Presenters – Xiaolei Xia, Jia Liu, Lijuan Wang, Yuanchun Zhou, Dr. Xiaoyan Hu

Explores how PIDs can better connect large research infrastructures (telescopes, etc.) with the datasets and publications they generate, particularly for AI-readiness. Proposes possible interest or working group on the topic.

Pitch 5. Room 2: FAIR from the Ground Up: Nanopublications as Knowledge Building Blocks – Natural Sciences. Presenters – Tobias Kuhn and Ashley Caselli

Argues FAIR should be applied at the individual statement level, not just datasets. Demonstrates a working decentralised network (nanopub.net) where each assertion carries provenance and a signature. Proposes an interest group leading to working group on conventions and tooling.

Pitch 6. Room 1: Liberata: Rewiring Incentives for Open, Trustworthy Science – Engineering & Technology. Presenter – Patrick Prochazka

Proposes an open-access publishing platform where peer review and replication are compensated via tradeable ‘contribution shares.’ Pitches both an interest group on incentive-aligned open research validation and a working group on a machine-readable contribution attribution metadata standard.

Pitch 6. Room 2: How Resilient is Your Earth and Environmental Data Infrastructure: Documenting Disasters, Near Misses and Successes. – Natural Sciences. Presenter – Lesley Wyborn

Responds to the 2025 US federal funding crisis and growing threats to repository infrastructure. Calls for a collection of case study essays (‘disasters, near misses, successes’) on repository resilience, to be published in the Data Science Journal, informing a future RDA working group on sustaining earth/environmental data supply chains.

Pitch 7. Room 1: From machine interpretability to machine actionability – FAIR Digital Objects for persistent, modular, and well described metadata – Engineering & Technology. Presenters – Maximilian Inckmann, Karsten Peters-von Gehlen, Andreas Pfeil

Demonstrates FAIR Digital Object capabilities: modular metadata profiles, technology-independent type systems, and machine-actionable operations. Calls for collaborators to build FDO use cases with the existing RDA FDOF IG or the FDO Forum testbed.

Afternoon Tea & Coffee Break

Breakout Session 4. BoF Session – Federation by Necessity? Governing Research Commons Beyond Interoperability

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 4.

CANCELLED. Breakout Session 4. BoF Session – Interoperable Pharmacogenomics: Enabling Trusted Genomics–Clinical Trial Data Integration For Precision Medicine At Scale

CANCELLED. This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 4.

Evening Gathering

An evening of bowl food and drinks in a relaxed, informal setting. The perfect opportunity to socialise and connect with colleagues from across the global RDA community. One ticket is included in each P27 delegate registration.

Wellbeing and Quiet Spaces

Available on the third floor for all attendees who need a quiet moment or space to themselves. These rooms are not for private meetings.

Arrival Tea & Coffee Break

Morning Tea & Coffee Break

Breakout Session 5. BoF Session – Beyond the Chatbot: Standards for AI Agents in Research Data Workflows

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 5.

Breakout Session 5. BoF Session – Advancing Interoperability in Pediatric Oncology: A Zero Data Movement Framework

This BoF is scheduled for 40 minutes, as one of two BoFs running consecutively in this breakout slot 5.

Lunch break

Afternoon Tea & Coffee Break

RDA P27 Closing Session ‘Making the Global Open Research Commons a reality’

The closing session of RDA P27 will take the opportunity to reflect on what we have heard during the three days and what it means to “shape a global open research commons”. Hearing from speakers across regional and thematic perspectives, the session will explore practical approaches, challenges, lessons learned, and how the community can work together to make it a reality.
Keynote Speakers: Hilary Hanahoe (RDA), Lautaro Matas (LA Referencia), Natalie Harrower (CRDCN), Tony Burdett (BioFAIR), Rosie Bolton (SKA)
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Co-located event: CDIF4EOSC: an AI-ready, data engineering playbook for FAIR Integration in EOSC and beyond

From ocean sciences to sustainable materials, CDIF4EOSC is turning FAIR principles into practical, AI-assisted tools. Join this event to see how. Learn more.