Preliminary agenda announced for the Open Technology Research Symposium 2026

The preliminary agenda for the first Open Technology Research (OTR) Symposium is now available. Taking place on 26 and 27 October 2026 at the University of Barcelona as part of Barcelona Open Tech Week, the Symposium is convened by Open Technology Research’s founding members: OpenForum Europe, the Open Source Initiative, the Open Knowledge Foundation, and the Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund.

This year’s Symposium is guided by the theme “Shaping the Open Transition”, reflecting a shared ambition to move from diagnosis to action: from mapping the landscape of open technologies to charting the path forward for their adoption, sustainability, and impact.

The response to the Call for Proposals exceeded expectations, with more than 140 submissions from researchers, practitioners, governments, foundations, companies, standards bodies, and community organizations around the world. The final program represents only a fraction of the proposals received and reflects the growing interest in research that advances open technologies.

This year’s Symposium is supported by an outstanding group of content partners, including the Mozilla Foundation, the Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA), the Sovereign Tech Agency, the Digital Commons Policy Council (DCPC), the Open Science Hardware Foundation, the Open Future Foundation, and Invest in Open Infrastructure.

The program showcases the global nature of the open technology research community, featuring speakers from Fiji, Ireland, Australia, India, Slovenia, Brazil, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Nigeria, Italy, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, and the United States.

The agenda is organized around six research tracks:

Governance, including governance and AI
Open source hardware
Sustainability and business models
Behavioural change and adoption
Open science and research infrastructure
Public procurement ecosystem

The event will also feature keynote sessions, dedicated discussions on advancing the shared OTR research agenda, and the presentation of the Basil Cousins Award for an emerging researcher.

Preliminary agenda

Monday, 26 October

09:30 Governance Before Technology: Lessons from Integrate Pasifika for Open Knowledge Infrastructure and Digital Sovereignty in the Pacific – Koto Qalo

09:50 How Open Should We Go? A Decision Framework for Open Sourcing, InnerSourcing, or Closing Public Sector Code – Clare Dillon

11:00 Tech Sovereignty, Digital Public Infrastructure, and Open Source AI Models: Bringing the Pieces Together – Marco Germanò

11:30 Digital Commons as Civic Infrastructure: Governance Frameworks for Open Source AI and Public Accountability – Yigakpoa L. Ikpae

12:30 Mapping the OSH Manufacturing Landscape: Facilitative Models for Open Source Hardware in Europe and Beyond – Pen Yuan Hsing

13:00 Extending Digital Sovereignty Beyond Software: The Role of Open Source Hardware – Johan Linåker

14:40 From Volunteer Heroics to Public Infrastructure: A Talent Pool Model for Funding Disaster Response Open Technology – Rosalind Liu

15:00 A Multidimensional Assessment Framework for Evaluating the Sustainability of Open Infrastructures – Mohit Garg

15:30 Building a Method: Challenges and Lessons from Developing an Impact Evaluation Framework for Open Source Software Fundingv – Laia Domenech Burin

17:20 Political User Experience (PUX): Reimagining User Experience for Digital Participatory Policymaking – Olivier Schulbaum (platoniq)

17:50 Inside the InnerSource Program Office: An Activity Theory Analysis of How Organizations Enable Open Collaboration at Scale – Clare Dillon

Tuesday, 27 October

09:25 Reclone: Open Research Infrastructure for Equitable Access to Biotechnology Reagents – Cibele Zolnier

11:30 From Open Source to Open State: Shifting the Pareto Frontier of Public Procurement – Rithikha Rajamohan

12:20 The Ecosystem Blueprint: Reframing Vendor Survival Psychology in Digital Procurement – Henry Poole and Farooq Zakhilwal

Registration is free. The complete preliminary agenda, including abstracts and additional speaker information, is available at: https://symposium.opentechresearch.org/

The OTR Symposium 2026 is part of Barcelona Open Tech Week, featuring Mozilla Festival, Decidim Fest, 4D Conference, Open Source Policy Summit, and the Global Assembly for Open Source: https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/innovaciodemocratica/ca/actualitat/barcelona-es-prepara-per-ser-la-capital-mundial-del-codi-obert-40099