Follow a manual added link8th International
8th International
Boosting Digital Sovereignty
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.
Conference Information
Discuss interdisciplinary aspects of Open Search
technical • ethical • legal • educational • economic • applications
Keynotes
Stefan Mesken
Chief Scientist, DeepL
Julian Kunkel
Professor in High-Performance Computing at University of Göttingen
Hannes Taubenböck
Head of Department “Georisks & Civil Security” at DLR
Professor for Global Urbanization and Remote Sensing at University of Würzburg
Science Tracks
Crawling
Retrieval
Spatial modeling
AI in Science
Web data driven applications
Sessions
- Ethics + Society
- Legal aspects of open web search & AI training
- User behavior and preferences in search and AI
Workshops
Evaluating Design Patterns for Legally Compliant Open Web Index and Search Engine Systems
Disinformation tools
Open Web Data Working Group of EuroHPC
Student project session
Overview timetable
Day 1 | 7 Oct. 26
08:30 | Opening of Registration
09:15 | Conference Opening
Welcome
tba
CODE University of Applied Sciences
09:30 | Keynote
Opening Keynote
tba
tba
10:30 | Coffee Break
11:00 | Science Track
Crawling
Session Chair: tbd
11:00 Estimating Absolute Web Crawl Coverage From Longitudinal Set Intersections
Michael Paris (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin); Fabian Baumann (University of Pennsylvania); Grigori Paris (Independent Researcher)
11:20 A Focused Crawling Strategy to Enhance Geoscience Data Retrieval
Tobias Hecking (DLR), Raphael Frühwirth; Christian Gütl; Alexander Nussbaumer (TU Graz)
11:40 Measuring Crawler Lock-in: Translating Scheduling Preferences Into Language Coverage For Common Crawl
Michael Paris (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin); Sebastian Nagel (Common Crawl Foundation)
12:00 | Lunch Break
13:30 | Keynote
Keynote (title tba)
Julian Kunkel
Professor for High-Performance Computing at University of Göttingen
14:30 | Social science session
User behavior and preferences in search and AI
Session Chair: tbd
14:30 Privacy-Enhancing Digital Infrastructures – Understanding User Preferences Regarding Internet Search And Their Inclusion Into Systems Design
Sarah Götz (University of Kassel)
14:50 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)
15:10 Renegotiating the open web: Emerging AI Preferences standards
Stefan Baack (Independent researcher)
15:30 | Coffee Break
16:00 | Applications Track
Web data driven applications
Session Chair: tbd
16:00 eMarketShield: Enhancing Consumer Protection in E-Commerce through Digital Innovation and Regulatory Oversight
Christoph Rinner (Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety)
16:20 SOURCE (title tba)
tba
16:40 Designing A Power Bi Dashboard For Data-Driven Supplier Comparison In Manufacturing Procurement
Beulah Devathasan; Emolin Indran Rajanbabu (Aarhus University)
17:00 | Closing of Day 1
17:30 | Ice breaker
Day 2 | 8 Oct. 26
9:00 | Keynote
Keynote (title tba)
Stefan Mesken
Chief Scientist, DeepL
10:00 | Coffee Break
10:30 | Legal Session
Legal aspects of Open Web Search and AI training
Session chair: tbd
10:30 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)
10:50 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)
11:10 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)
11:30 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)
12:00 | Lunch Break
13:30 | Keynote
Keynote
Hannes Taubenböck
Head of Department “Georisks & Civil Security” at DLR
Professor for Global Urbanization and Remote Sensing at University of Würzburg
14:30 | Parallel workshops
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)
Workshop 2: SOURCE workshop
Organisers: tba
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)
Workshop 4: Student project session
Organisers: CODE
16:00 | Parallel sessions
Session 1: Spatial modeling
Session chair: tbd
16:00 Extraction Of Geospatial Disaster Related Information From Web News And Text Data
Vanessa Rittlinger (DLR)
16:20 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)
16:40 A Spatially Enabled Search System For Hydrological Publications: A Demonstration
Xuke Hu; Jens Kersten; Friederike Klan (DLR); Lina Stein (RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau)
Session 2: Ethics + Society
Session chair: tbd
16:00 An Ethics-by-Design Approach for the Open Web Index
Alexander Nussbaumer (TU Graz)
16:20 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)
16:40 Open, to What End? A Capability-Theoretic Perspective on Open Search
Nicola Neophytou; Bhaskar Mitra (Independent Researcher)
17:00 | Closing of Day 2
19:00 | Panel discussion (in German)
„Souveränität im Netz – Wie eine europäische Webdateninfrastruktur Freiheit, Wirtschaft und Demokratie stärkt“
Weizenbaum-Institut, Hardenbergstraße 32, 10623 Berlin
Day 3 | 9 Oct. 26
9:00 | Keynote
Title tba
tba
tba
10:00 | Applications track
AI in Science
Session Chair: tbd
10:00 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)
10:20 TraceableAI: An Open-Source Agentic Framework For Prisma-Compliant Literature Synthesis
Philip Lau (Aarhus University)
10:40 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)
11:00 | Coffee Break
11:30 | Science Track
Retrieval
Session Chair: tbd
11:30 Adaptive Unsupervised Topic Modeling for Domain Focused Web Search
Hema Pandey (DLR)
11:50 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)
12:10 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)
12:30 | Closing of #ossym26 & Wrap-Up
13:00 | End of Symposium
13:00 | Lunch
For any changes in the program please check back regularly on the conference website. Or sign-up for our newsletter to stay up to date.
Venue
CODE University of Applied Sciences
Berlin-Neukölln, Germany
Address
CODE University of Applied Sciences
Donaustr. 44
12043 Berlin
Access instructions for event guests
- Enter the venue via Donaustraße 44, not via Karl-Marx-Straße.
- Once inside the building, take the elevators from the ground floor to the first floor, where the venue is located.
- The building entrance and access route are wheelchair accessible.
Please note: City tax
The City of Berlin charges a tax for the promotion and advancement of culture of 5% for each night a guest spends privately at a hotel. Overnight stays for professional/business reasons are exempt from the City Tax. Additional charges such as breakfast and mini-bar are tax-free.
Hotels nearby
Mercure Hotel Berlin Tempelhof (€€€)
Motel Plus Berlin Neukölln (€)
Bellman Hotel (€€€)
ibis Berlin City Süd (€€)
Hotels in the city centre with good connections
Motel One Berlin-Alexanderplatz (€€)
Maritim proArte Hotel Berlin (€€€)
Hotel Courtyard by Marriott Berlin City Center (€€€)
Hotels in Berlin West near Kurfürstendamm
Leonardo Hotel Berlin KU´DAMM (€€)
How to get there
Traveling to Berlin – everything you need to know
Airport to city centre
- The Airport Express takes you to Berlin Central Station in 30 minutes.
- Two new lines under the name PlusBus Airport-Region also run every hour during the week from Königs Wusterhausen via Wildau, Miersdorf and Schulzendorf to BER Airport. Express buses also run from the Rudow underground station.
- To reach the city centre, take the S-Bahn lines S 9 and S 45, which leave every 20 minutes.
By public transport
Take the U7 subway and get off at Karl-Marx-Straße. From there, it’s a 5- to 10-minute walk to CODE.
If you arrive at Berlin Central Station, the easiest and quickest option is to take the M41 bus (direction: Sonnenallee/Baumschulenstr.) and get off at Berlin, Erkstraße. From there, it’s just a 5-minute walk.
By car
Take the A100 to the Sonnenallee exit. From there, you only have to drive straight for around 1.5 km until you reach CODE.
Parking spots can be hard to come by, though. If you want to make sure you can park your car, there are a few public car parks in the area you could try: one is on Rollbergstraße, about a 7-minute walk from CODE, and another one is at Neukölln Arcaden, about a 10-minute walk from CODE.
Please note that downtown Berlin is an environmental zone. This means you need to get your vehicle a sticker indicating its emissions rating.
By taxi
Make sure your drop-off point is Donaustraße 44, not via Karl-Marx-Straße.
Speaker Info
Henna Virkkunen
European Commission
Executive Vice-President Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy
10 October | Welcome Address (pre-recorded) | 9.15 am
As Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen is tasked with combatting the increasingly complex security threats facing the EU, whilst at the same time strengthening our external borders and our internal security. This goes hand in hand with her responsibility to ensure our freedoms, justice and democracy are strengthened too.
Furthermore, she is responsible for the Digital and Frontier Technologies portfolio. This entails leading Europe’s efforts in shaping a competitive, resilient and inclusive digital future and maintaining or attaining leadership in strategic digital technologies.
Prior to joining the European Commission Ms Virkkunen served as a Member of the European Parliament for over ten years. As a Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy her work focused on digitalisation and frontier technologies.
Henna Virkkunen has held various ministerial positions in Finland, namely Minister of Transport and Local Government (2014), Minister of Public Administration and Local Government (2011-2014) as well as Minister of Education (2008-2011).
Aura Salla
Member of the European Parliament
8 October | Opening Keynote | 09:30 am
Aura Salla is a Finnish politician and EU expert currently serving as a Member of the European Parliament. With a PhD in political science and a background in high-level EU policy roles, she brings deep insight into European governance and digital affairs. Her career spans advisory positions in the European Commission and active roles in Finnish politics. Aura is known for her pragmatic approach to policy and her commitment to building a strong, united Europe.
Photographer: Ahu Yigit
Harri Ketamo
Founder & Chairman
Headai
9 October | Keynote – The openness of knowledge data and its role in Future Search Solutions | 11.00 am
Dr. Harri Ketamo is an entrepreneur and researcher with over 20 years of experience in cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and learning technologies. He is the founder and chairman of Headai, a company pioneering semantic AI for transparent decision-making. Harri is an Eisenhower Fellow and serves as an Adjunct Professor at Tampere University of Technology and Senior Fellow at the University of Turku. His work bridges science and business, focusing on data openness and sustainable innovation.
Viivi Lähteenoja
CEO The MyData Company
Doctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki
10 October | Keynote – Searching for Trust: Reflections on Epistemic Virtue Online | 9.00 am
Viivi Lähteenoja is a professional, researcher, and advocate in the field of data strategy, policy, and ethics. She works to promote the human-centered and ethically sustainable use of personal data in order to improve the well-being of people and societies. Viivi is the chair of the board of the award-winning international organization MyData Global and the CEO of MyData Company. The association’s purpose is to promote fair, sustainable, and prosperous societies through human-centered personal data.
She is also a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki and a visiting researcher at Aalto University, where her research focuses on philosophical ethics and the (mis)use of personal data.
Aura Salla
Member of the European Parliament
8 October | Opening Keynote
Aura Salla is a Finnish politician and EU expert currently serving as a Member of the European Parliament. With a PhD in political science and a background in high-level EU policy roles, she brings deep insight into European governance and digital affairs. Her career spans advisory positions in the European Commission and active roles in Finnish politics. Aura is known for her pragmatic approach to policy and her commitment to building a strong, united Europe.
Photographer: Ahu Yigit
Harri Ketamo
Founder & Chairman
Headai
9 October | Keynote – The openness of knowledge data and its role in Future Search Solutions | 11.00 am
Dr. Harri Ketamo is an entrepreneur and researcher with over 20 years of experience in cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and learning technologies. He is the founder and chairman of Headai, a company pioneering semantic AI for transparent decision-making. Harri is an Eisenhower Fellow and serves as an Adjunct Professor at Tampere University of Technology and Senior Fellow at the University of Turku. His work bridges science and business, focusing on data openness and sustainable innovation.
Viivi Lähteenoja
CEO The MyData Company
Doctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki
10 October | Keynote – Searching for Trust: Reflections on Epistemic Virtue Online | 9.00 am
Viivi Lähteenoja is a professional, researcher, and advocate in the field of data strategy, policy, and ethics. She works to promote the human-centered and ethically sustainable use of personal data in order to improve the well-being of people and societies. Viivi is the chair of the board of the award-winning international organization MyData Global and the CEO of MyData Company. The association’s purpose is to promote fair, sustainable, and prosperous societies through human-centered personal data.
She is also a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki and a visiting researcher at Aalto University, where her research focuses on philosophical ethics and the (mis)use of personal data.
Conference Facts – Overview
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
Main Topics
Discuss interdisciplinary aspects of Open Search
technical • ethical • legal • educational • economic • applications
Topics of #ossym2026 include but are not limited to
- Open search architectures and platforms
- Open Web Index and application domains
- Federated search and cross-domain search
- Web Data Analytics and Web Mining
- Natural language and multi-media processing for search
- Large Language Models, Machine learning and generative AI
- AI-based search and Retrieval Augmented Generation
- Personalization and recommendation in search
- Conversational Retrieval Experiences
- Georeferencing of web content and geospatial search and analysis
- Evaluation of open search systems
- Applications of open search in domains such as science, e-commerce, health, and education
- Search bias and trust
- Economic dimensions of open search
- Search engine advertising and business models in an open search world
- Green computing and sustainability
- Societal and ethical challenges and solutions
- Ethical and value aspects of search
- Politics and governance
- Legal aspects
Call for papers – closed
We are calling for your contribution with scientific papers, sharing of practical experiences or by introducing concepts and positions in relevant fields, such as computer science, legal, economics and ethics. Full papers and abstracts presented at the #ossym2026 will be published open access in online proceedings (including DOIs and ISBN) following the event.
Please submit your contribution: for research contributions we accept full papers (4-6 pages) and for any other contribution (concepts, best practices or practitioners’ experiences) an extended abstract (1 page).
All abstracts and papers have to be submitted via https://indico.cern.ch/e/OSSYM-2026 using the templates specified there. The acceptance of all full papers and extended abstracts is subject of a peer-review process.
Call for Demos
We invite young researchers and students to showcase their innovative work using the Open Web Index of the OpenWebSearch.eu project. This call is an excellent opportunity for participants to develop and present innovative search and web analytics solutions to advance to a more open search ecosystem and show them to the open search community. We are particularly interested in demonstrations that combine the Open Web Index with technologies such as Large Language Models, Knowledge Graphs, or that offer new search paradigms (e.g. Argumentation Search, Conversational Search), interesting frontends, and domain-specific search solutions. In addition, we are also looking for contributions towards web-scale, robust semantic enrichment techniques that can advance search solutions for different domains. Examples could be information quality assessments, entity extraction or Knowledge Graph alignment.
All demos have to be submitted via https://indico.cern.ch/e/OSSYM-2026 using the templates specified there. The acceptance of all demos is subject of a peer-review process.
Registration
The registration for #ossym2026 opens June, 15th 2026. The conference programme will be published from spring 2026. To stay up to date, subscribe to the free osf newsletter.
You can register for the conference – for onsite and online participation – via the system of our conference partner CSC. Please note that the participation fee will be charged during the registration process.
Organisers & Programme Committee
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
Dr. Stefan Voigt | DLR, Cologne, Germany
Publication Chairs
Sebastian Guertl | Graz University of Technology, Austria
Elias Sandner | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Dr. Andreas Wagner | CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Poster Session Chairs
To be announced shortly
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
Prof. Dr. Mohammed Kaicer | Faculty of Sciences Kenitra, Morocco
Dr. Jens Kersten | German Aerospace Centre, Jena, Germany
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