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

7 Oct 2026, 08:30 → 9 Oct 2026, 17:20 Europe/Berlin

CODE University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany

Andreas Wagner (CERN), Christian Gütl (Graz University of Technology), Megi Sharikadze (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre), Michael Granitzer, Stefan Voigt (Open Search Foundation)

7 - 9 October 2026

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How can Open Web Search contribute to digital diversity?

Not only Europe is heavily depending on web services from a few monopolistic economic players. Data is flowing out, value is being lost, and regulation is being undermined. How can we counter this situation with an open web data infrastructure? Which technical and economic concepts promise acceptance and strengthen digital diversity? Which ethical and legal questions need to be answered in this context?
“Boosting Digital Sovereignty” is the ossym2026 conference theme. Join us in Berlin for inspiring talks, thoughtful discussions and latest scientific research findings.

For the eighth time, ossym2026 is bringing together the European and international Open Web Search community.

The hybrid conference provides a forum to discuss and further develop the ideas and concepts of open internet search and related topics such as webdata in the context of AI. The conference comprises various formats including scientific talks, poster sessions, panels, workshops, demonstrations, student engagement and informal discussion spaces. It is aimed at researchers, data centres, libraries, policy makers, legal and ethical experts, and the broader community.

.  ( Open Search Foundation) t your Demo proposal here 

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Registration

• Register here for OSSYM26 
 

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Important Dates

Submission deadline of full papers and extended abstracts
15 March 2026

Information about contribution acceptance
1 June 2026

Registration for the #ossym2026
will open 15 June 2026

International Open Search Symposium #ossym2026
7 - 9 October 2026

Online publication of proceedings
October 2026 

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Conference format

• Conference location: Berlin, Germany, and Online. 
  
  

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Venue

CODE University of Applied Sciences
Donaustr. 44
12043 Berlins
Germany 

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Conference Chairs

Prof. Dr. Michael Granitzer | University Passau, Germany
Prof. Dr. Christian Guetl | Graz University of Technology, Austria
Dr. Megi Sharikadze | Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Munich, Germany
Dr. Stefan Voigt | Open Search Foundation, Starnberg, Germany
Dr. Andreas Wagner | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

Local Chairs and Organization

Stefan Voigt | DLR, Berlin, Germany

Publication Chairs 

Sebastian Guertl | Graz University of Technology, Austria
Elias Sandner | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Andreas Wagner | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

 

Poster Session Chairs

To be announced shortly

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Programme Committee

Prof. Emmanuel Cartier | European Commission JRC
Prof. Dr. Alexander Decker | Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Germany
Prof. Dr. Arjen P. de Vries | Radboud University, Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Stefan Dietze | Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and GESIS, Germany
Msc. Roxanne ElBaff | German Aerospace Centre (DLR), Germany
Prof. Dr. Kai Erenli | University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna, Austria
Dipl. Inf. Fabio Fracassi | Code.Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany
Diana Francisco de Sousa | Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy
Dr. Maik Fröbe | Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany
Prof. Dr. Fabian Geier | Code.Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany
Priv.-Doz Dr. Christian Geminn | University Kassel, Germany
Prof. Dr. Michael Granitzer | University Passau, Germany
Prof. Dr. Christian Guetl | Graz University of Technology, Austria
Prof. Dr. Matthias Hagen | Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany
Dr. Tobias Hecking | German Aerospace Centre (DLR), Germany
Prof. Dr. Denis Helic | Graz University of Technology, Austria
Msc. Gijs Hendriksen | Radboud University, Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Andreas Henrich | University Bamberg, Germany
Prof. Djoerd Hiemstra | University of Twente, Radboud University, Netherlands
Msc. Phil Höfer | SUMA e.V., Germany
Prof. Dr. Robert Jäschke | Humboldt University Berlin & L3S, Hannover, Germany
Dr. Igor Jakovljevic | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Dr. Jens Kersten | German Aerospace Centre, Jena, Germany
Prof. Dr. Mohammed Kaicer | Faculty of Sciences Kenitra, Morocco
Dr. Jelena Mitrovic | University of Passau, Germany
Prof. Dr. Engelbert Niehaus | University Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany
Prof. Dr. Monica Palmirani | Università di Bologna, Italy
Prof. Dr. Melanie Platz | Saarland University, Germany
Prof. Dr. Martin Potthast | Kassel University, Germany
Prof. Dr. Mirko Presser | Aarhus University, Denmark
Prof. Dr. Georg Rehm | German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Berlin, Germany
Dr. Renée Ridgway | Aarhus University, Denmark
Prof. Dr. Adam Roe | Code.Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany
Dr. Tim Smith | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Prof. Dr. Benno Stein | Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany
Dr. Nicola Tonellotto | University of Pisa, Italy
Eng. Marco Verile | European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy
Dr. Stefan Voigt | Open Search Foundation, Germany
Dr. Andreas Wagner | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

 

 

Document templates for contributions

• JACoW_W16_MAC_A4.dotx
• LaTeX JACoW template
• OSSYM_ODF_A4.ott
• OSSYM_W16_A4.dotx

Wednesday 7 October

08:30 → 09:15 Opening of Registration

09:15 → 10:30 Conference Opening: Welcome & Keynote

09:15 Conference Opening: Welcome & Keynote

09:16 Welcome

Speaker: CODE University of Applied Sciences

09:30 Opening Keynote

Speaker: tba

10:30 → 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 → 12:00 Science Track: Retrieval

11:00 Science Track: Retrieval

Speaker: Session Chair: tbd

11:01 OURS & YOARS: Open Platforms for Sovereign Web Retrieval and Agentic Information Access

Speaker: 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

Speaker: Hema Pandey (DLR)

11:40 An Open-Source Retrieval Layer for Institutional RAG: From Authenticated Crawl to Searchable Index

Speaker: Noor Afshan Fathima; Juan Manuel Guijarro, Andreas Wagner (CERN); Alexander Nussbaumer (Graz University of Technology)

12:00 → 13:30 Lunch Break

13:30 → 14:15 Keynote: (title tba)

Convener: Julian Kunkel (Professor for High-Performance Computing at University of Göttingen)

13:30 Keynote: (title tba)

Speaker: Julian Kunkel (Professor for High-Performance Computing at University of Göttingen)

14:15 → 15:15 Social science session: User behavior and preferences in search and AI

Convener: Session Chair: tbd

14:15 Social science session: User behavior and preferences in search and AI

Speaker: Session Chair: tbd

14:16 Privacy-Enhancing Digital Infrastructures – Understanding User Preferences Regarding Internet Search And Their Inclusion Into Systems Design

Speaker: Sarah Götz (University of Kassel)

14:35 Hybrid Search Ecosystems: An Empirical Analysis of Online Search Behavior of Generation Z and Alpha in Germany

Speaker: Alexander Decker; Marie Einsiedler (Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Germany)

14:55 Renegotiating the open web: Emerging AI Preferences standards

Speaker: Stefan Baack (Independent researcher)

15:15 → 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 → 16:45 Applications Track: Web data driven applications

Convener: Session Chair: tbd

15:45 Applications Track: Web data driven applications

Speaker: Session Chair: tbd

15:46 eMarketShield: Enhancing Consumer Protection in E-Commerce through Digital Innovation and Regulatory Oversight

Speaker: Christoph Rinner (Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety)

16:05 SOURCE (title tba)

Speaker: tba

16:25 Designing A Power Bi Dashboard For Data-Driven Supplier Comparison In Manufacturing Procurement

Speaker: Beulah Devathasan; Emolin Indran Rajanbabu (Aarhus University)

16:45 → 17:00 Closing of Day 1

17:30 → 19:30 Ice breaker / reception

Thursday 8 October

09:00 → 09:45 Keynote: (title tba)

Convener: Stefan Mesken (Chief Scientist, DeepL)

09:45 → 10:15 Coffee Break

10:15 → 11:35 Legal Session: Legal aspects of Open Web Search and AI training

Convener: Session chair: tbd

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

Speaker: Session chair: tbd

10:16 Design Conflicts in Open Search Infrastructures: A Design Pattern-Based Approach to Integrating Legal and User Requirements

Speaker: 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

Speaker: 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

Speaker: 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

Speaker: Kai Erenli (FH BFI Vienna)

11:35 → 13:00 Lunch Break

13:00 → 13:45 Keynote: (title tba)

Convener: Hannes Taubenböck (Head of Department “Georisks & Civil Security” at DLR Professor for Global Urbanization and Remote Sensing at University of Würzburg)

13:45 → 14:45 Science Track: Spatial modeling

Convener: Session chair: tbd

13:45 Science track: Spatial modeling

Speaker: Session chair: tbd

13:46 Extraction Of Geospatial Disaster Related Information From Web News And Text Data

Speaker: 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

Speaker: 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

Speaker: Xuke Hu; Jens Kersten; Friederike Klan (DLR); Lina Stein (RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau)

14:45 → 15:15 Coffee Break

15:15 → 16:45 Parallel workshops: Workshop 1 - 4

15:15 Workshop 1: Evaluating Design Patterns for Legally Compliant Open Web Index and Search Engine Systems

Speaker: Organisers: Sophia Meywirth, Paul Johannes (University of Kassel); Charlotte Werther (OSF)

15:15 Workshop 2: SOURCE workshop

Speaker: Organisers: tba

16:00 Workshop 3: Joint session of Open Web Data Working Group of EuroHPC and Open Web Search Community

Speaker: Organisers: Megi Sharikadze (LRZ); Heidi Laine, Per Öster (CSC)

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

Speaker: Organisers: CODE (tbd)

16:45 → 17:00 Closing of Day 2

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

Friday 9 October

09:00 → 09:45 Keynote: (title tba)

Convener: tba

09:45 → 10:45 Social science session: Ethics+Society

Convener: Session chair: tbd

09:45 Social science session: Ethics+Society

Speaker: Session chair: tbd

09:46 An Ethics-by-Design Approach for the Open Web Index

Speaker: Alexander Nussbaumer (TU Graz)

10:05 Co-Creating Inclusive AI Search Frontends: Findings from the KIsu-Project with children, young people, and older adults

Speaker: 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

Speaker: Nicola Neophytou; Bhaskar Mitra (Independent Researcher)

10:45 → 11:15 Coffee break

11:15 → 12:15 Applications Track: AI in Science

Convener: Session Chair: tbd

11:15 Applications track: AI in Science

Speaker: Session Chair: tbd

11:16 AI-Assisted Search String Creation Module for NeutrinoReview

Speaker: 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

Speaker: Philip Lau (Aarhus University)

11:55 NeutrinoReview: Usability Analysis

Speaker: Luca Fontana, Christian Gütl, Elias Sandner (Graz University of Technology); Andre Henriques, Igor Jakovljevic, Andreas Wagner (CERN); Sebastian Pack; Alice Simniceanu (WHO)

12:15 → 13:15 Science Track: Crawling

Convener: Session Chair: tbd

12:15 Science Track: Crawling

Speaker: Session Chair: tbd

12:16 Estimating Absolute Web Crawl Coverage From Longitudinal Set Intersections

Speaker: 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

Speaker: 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

Speaker: Michael Paris (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin); Sebastian Nagel (Common Crawl Foundation)

13:15 → 13:30 Closing of #ossym26 & Wrap-Up & announcing #ossym27

13:30 → 13:40 End of Symposium