Name: OSSYM 2026 - 8th International Open Search Symposium "Boosting Digital Sovereignity"
Start: 2026-10-07T08:30:00+02:00
End: 2026-10-09T17:20:00+02:00
Location: CODE University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany

OSSYM 2026 - 8th International Open Search Symposium "Boosting Digital Sovereignity"

from Wednesday, 7 October 2026 (08:30) to Friday, 9 October 2026 (17:20)

Monday, 5 October 2026
Tuesday, 6 October 2026
Wednesday, 7 October 2026

08:30 Opening of Registration
Opening of Registration
08:30 - 09:15
09:15 Conference Opening: Welcome & Keynote
Welcome & Keynote
09:15 - 10:30
Contributions

09:15 Conference Opening: Welcome & Keynote

09:16 Welcome - CODE University of Applied Sciences

09:30 Opening Keynote - tba
10:30 Coffee Break
Coffee Break
10:30 - 11:00
11:00 Science Track: Retrieval
Retrieval
11:00 - 12:00
Contributions

11:00 Science Track: Retrieval - Session Chair: tbd

11:01 OURS & YOARS: Open Platforms for Sovereign Web Retrieval and Agentic Information Access - Michael Granitzer; Mohammed Al-Maamari; Laura Caspari; Michael Dinzinger; Kanishka Ghosh Dastidar; Dang Dang Hai Dong; Jelena Mitrovic; Saber Zerhoudi (University of Passau); David Ciz (IT4Innovations)

11:20 Adaptive Unsupervised Topic Modeling for Domain Focused Web Search - Hema Pandey (DLR)

11:40 An Open-Source Retrieval Layer for Institutional RAG: From Authenticated Crawl to Searchable Index - Noor Afshan Fathima; Juan Manuel Guijarro, Andreas Wagner (CERN); Alexander Nussbaumer (Graz University of Technology)
12:00 Lunch Break
Lunch Break
12:00 - 13:30
13:30 Keynote: (title tba)
(title tba)
13:30 - 14:15
Contributions

13:30 Keynote: (title tba) - Julian Kunkel (Professor for High-Performance Computing at University of Göttingen)
14:15 Social science session: User behavior and preferences in search and AI
User behavior and preferences in search and AI
14:15 - 15:15
Contributions

14:15 Social science session: User behavior and preferences in search and AI - Session Chair: tbd

14:16 Privacy-Enhancing Digital Infrastructures – Understanding User Preferences Regarding Internet Search And Their Inclusion Into Systems Design - Sarah Götz (University of Kassel)

14:35 Hybrid Search Ecosystems: An Empirical Analysis of Online Search Behavior of Generation Z and Alpha in Germany - Alexander Decker; Marie Einsiedler (Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Germany)

14:55 Renegotiating the open web: Emerging AI Preferences standards - Stefan Baack (Independent researcher)
15:15 Coffee Break
Coffee Break
15:15 - 15:45
15:45 Applications Track: Web data driven applications
Web data driven applications
15:45 - 16:45
Contributions

15:45 Applications Track: Web data driven applications - Session Chair: tbd

15:46 eMarketShield: Enhancing Consumer Protection in E-Commerce through Digital Innovation and Regulatory Oversight - Christoph Rinner (Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety)

16:05 SOURCE (title tba) - tba

16:25 Designing A Power Bi Dashboard For Data-Driven Supplier Comparison In Manufacturing Procurement - Beulah Devathasan; Emolin Indran Rajanbabu (Aarhus University)
16:45 Closing of Day 1
Closing of Day 1
16:45 - 17:00

17:30 Ice breaker / reception
Ice breaker / reception
17:30 - 19:30
Thursday, 8 October 2026

09:00 Keynote: (title tba)
(title tba)
09:00 - 09:45

09:45 Coffee Break
Coffee Break
09:45 - 10:15
10:15 Legal Session: Legal aspects of Open Web Search and AI training
Legal aspects of Open Web Search and AI training
10:15 - 11:35
Contributions

10:15 Legal Session: Legal aspects of Open Web Search and AI training - Session chair: tbd

10:16 Design Conflicts in Open Search Infrastructures: A Design Pattern-Based Approach to Integrating Legal and User Requirements - Sophia Meywirth, Paul Johannes, Christian Geminn, Matthias Söllner (University of Kassel); Charlotte Werther, Stefan Voigt (OSF)

10:35 Quo Vadis Digital Regulation? An Overview of the Digital Regulatory Landscape in Europe and what it means for the European Web Data Infrastructure - Charlotte Werther (OSF)

10:55 Data protection responsibility of online platforms for user-generated content – recognising sensitive data, preventing scraping and identifying users in light of the ECJ’s ‘Russmedia’ judgement - Paul Johannes (University of Kassel)

11:15 Public Digital Infrastructure As Regulatory Stabilizer In A Recalibrated AI Landscape: Strategic Legal Navigation Under The EU Digital Omnibus On AI - Kai Erenli (FH BFI Vienna)
11:35 Lunch Break
Lunch Break
11:35 - 13:00

13:00 Keynote: (title tba)
(title tba)
13:00 - 13:45
13:45 Science Track: Spatial modeling
Spatial modeling
13:45 - 14:45
Contributions

13:45 Science track: Spatial modeling - Session chair: tbd

13:46 Extraction Of Geospatial Disaster Related Information From Web News And Text Data - Vanessa Rittlinger (DLR)

14:05 Proposed Methodology for Open Search Infrastructure leveraging federated RAG-systems and open source Speech Intelligence for cross-domain collaboration featuring Disaster Management, Traffic Flow Prediction and Literature Studies - Prof. Dr. Engelbert Niehaus, Jonah Schuster, Maximilian Stoffel, Walter Kühn, Jörg Rapp (RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau)

14:25 A Spatially Enabled Search System For Hydrological Publications: A Demonstration - Xuke Hu; Jens Kersten; Friederike Klan (DLR); Lina Stein (RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau)
14:45 Coffee Break
Coffee Break
14:45 - 15:15
15:15 Parallel workshops: Workshop 1 - 4
Workshop 1 - 4
15:15 - 16:45
Contributions

15:15 Workshop 2: SOURCE workshop - Organisers: tba

15:15 Workshop 1: Evaluating Design Patterns for Legally Compliant Open Web Index and Search Engine Systems - Organisers: Sophia Meywirth, Paul Johannes (University of Kassel); Charlotte Werther (OSF)

16:00 Workshop 4: Student project session / Index access tutorial (tbd) - Organisers: CODE (tbd)

16:00 Workshop 3: Joint session of Open Web Data Working Group of EuroHPC and Open Web Search Community - Organisers: Megi Sharikadze (LRZ); Heidi Laine, Per Öster (CSC)
16:45 Closing of Day 2
Closing of Day 2
16:45 - 17:00

19:00 Panel discussion (in German) „Souveränität im Netz – Wie eine europäische Webdateninfrastruktur Freiheit, Wirtschaft und Demokratie stärkt“
Panel discussion (in German) „Souveränität im Netz – Wie eine europäische Webdateninfrastruktur Freiheit, Wirtschaft und Demokratie stärkt“
19:00 - 21:00
Friday, 9 October 2026

09:00 Keynote: (title tba)
(title tba)
09:00 - 09:45
09:45 Social science session: Ethics+Society
Ethics+Society
09:45 - 10:45
Contributions

09:45 Social science session: Ethics+Society - Session chair: tbd

09:46 An Ethics-by-Design Approach for the Open Web Index - Alexander Nussbaumer (TU Graz)

10:05 Co-Creating Inclusive AI Search Frontends: Findings from the KIsu-Project with children, young people, and older adults - Melanie Platz; Kristin Altmeyer; Stephanie Heel; Sarah Malone; Kerstin Reese; Lisa Schick; Verena Wolf (Saarland University); Tanja Gottsmann; Maria Wiesner (fragFINN e.V.); Julius Gabelmann (DFKI); Ursula Gmelch; Christine Plote (OSF); Alessandra Rodrigues Eismann (Centigrade GmbH)

10:25 Open, to What End? A Capability-Theoretic Perspective on Open Search - Nicola Neophytou; Bhaskar Mitra (Independent Researcher)
10:45 Coffee break
Coffee break
10:45 - 11:15
11:15 Applications Track: AI in Science
AI in Science
11:15 - 12:15
Contributions

11:15 Applications track: AI in Science - Session Chair: tbd

11:16 AI-Assisted Search String Creation Module for NeutrinoReview - Luca Fontana; Christian Gütl (Graz University of Technology); Andre Henriques (CERN); Igor Jakovljevic (CERN); Sebastian Pack; Elias Sandner (Graz University of Technology (AT)); Alice Simniceanu (WHO); Andreas Wagner (CERN)

11:35 TraceableAI: An Open-Source Agentic Framework For Prisma-Compliant Literature Synthesis - Philip Lau (Aarhus University)

11:55 NeutrinoReview: Usability Analysis - Luca Fontana, Christian Gütl, Elias Sandner (Graz University of Technology); Andre Henriques, Igor Jakovljevic, Andreas Wagner (CERN); Sebastian Pack; Alice Simniceanu (WHO)
12:15 Science Track: Crawling
Crawling
12:15 - 13:15
Contributions

12:15 Science Track: Crawling - Session Chair: tbd

12:16 Estimating Absolute Web Crawl Coverage From Longitudinal Set Intersections - Michael Paris (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin); Fabian Baumann (University of Pennsylvania); Grigori Paris (Independent Researcher)

12:35 A Focused Crawling Strategy to Enhance Geoscience Data Retrieval - Tobias Hecking (DLR), Raphael Frühwirth; Christian Gütl; Alexander Nussbaumer (TU Graz)

12:55 Measuring Crawler Lock-in: Translating Scheduling Preferences Into Language Coverage For Common Crawl - Michael Paris (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin); Sebastian Nagel (Common Crawl Foundation)
13:15 Closing of #ossym26 & Wrap-Up & announcing #ossym27
Closing of #ossym26 & Wrap-Up & announcing #ossym27
13:15 - 13:30

13:30 End of Symposium
End of Symposium
13:30 - 13:40