International Data Week 2025 (IDW 2025) is a global event bringing together data scientists, researchers, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, policymakers and data stewards from disciplines across the globe to explore how best to exploit the data revolution to improve science and society through data-driven discovery and innovation.
The theme of IDW 2025 is Data for Positive Change: empowering communities and advancing research.
This conference will explore innovative ways to leverage data to empower communities, fostering collaboration between researchers, policymakers, business, and local stakeholders. By showcasing successful initiatives, cutting edge approaches and driving discussion and consensus, IDW 2025 will inspire participants to harness and treat data responsibly and ethically. Through dialogue and knowledge sharing, the conference seeks to build a future where data not only drives rigorous research but also uplifts communities and leads to sustainable change.
The four key topics that will discussed within the overall theme of Data for Positive Change are:
1. CAREful Indigenous Data Governance
The CARE* principles serve as foundational pillars to guide the management of data concerning or associated with Indigenous communities. Emphasising Collective Benefit underscores the importance of collaborative approaches, Authority to Control supports Indigenous sovereignty over data, Responsibility entails the establishment of clear accountability structures and processes, and Ethical considerations prioritise the protection of Indigenous knowledge, cultural protocols, and privacy rights. By adhering to these CARE principles, we can strive to foster self-determination, promote equitable partnerships, and address historical injustices. This session will provide three different perspectives on the challenges of indigenous data governance and existing and developing responses.
2. Rigorous, responsible and reproducible science in the area of FAIR data and AI
The planetary and societal challenges of the 21st century are complex and multi-faceted. Given these characteristics, it is vital to leverage multi-stakeholder participation in transdisciplinary approaches, to maximise access to data from government, the private sector and academia, while leveraging new computational and AI-inspired methodologies.
Yet, in a world adapting to the challenges and opportunities of transformative technologies and unprecedented volumes of data, there is also pressure on science systems to maintain good practices and guidelines for the science of data. The opportunities to accelerate scientific discovery, through the adoption of new technologies, will only be realised if data intensive science is also rigorous, responsible and reproducible.
3. Open research and federated systems: disciplinary, regional and international perspectives
An international panel will share progress made with open data and research via interconnected, interoperable, and interdisciplinary data, technologies, platforms, and services.
This progress comes from disciplinary and regional entities designing federated data systems for metadata and data exchange. These systems leverage distributed nodes and access portals that support common APIs, metadata schemas, and services. Technological advancements in semantic interoperability, authentication, and sensitive data exchange are major enablers of these federated systems.
Demonstrations of high-impact applications and views of the international state of open research will be exchanged, followed by a moderated discussion.
4. Empowering the global data community for impact, equity, and inclusion
Despite progress in global Open Science practices, there remain significant disparities between regions, especially in access to resources and efforts to bridge the digital divide, particularly concerning research data. Stakeholders must prioritise ethical and responsible data practices while addressing a range of barriers, including linguistic and dialectical, which limits global participation. This session will feature leaders, especially from the Southern hemisphere, working to close this gap. The goal is to create a collaborative checklist for global inclusion, equity, and solutions to overcome language barriers.
