IMPORTANT DATES

 Paper submission deadline: 15 August 2026, with notification 10 days after submission

Authors Registration due: 30 September 2026

The Conference

• • Masterclass (limited spaces availability): 12 November 2026
  • Conference Opening: 12 November 2026
  • Main Conference days: 13-14 November 2026
  • Social Events: TBA

PUBLICATION

Proceedings will be published with CEUR-WS.org (indexed by DBLP, Scopus, GoogleScholar etc.), and extended versions of selected papers will be published in an international peer-reviewed journal. MBD2026 will take care of formatting your submission to CEUR templates.

SUBMISSION TYPES

Please submit a word file (12pt Font, Single Spacing) in the form of

• Full Research Papers (5 to 12 pages, including references)
• Short Papers (up to 4 pages, including references)
• Posters (A1 size, vertical)

Proposals for panels, special sessions, and demonstrations are also welcome.

MBD CONFERENCE THEMES

We welcome contributions including, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Museum Big Data and Analytics
• Artificial Intelligence in Museums
• Digital Cultural Heritage, Metadata, and Interoperability
• Visitor Experience and Audience Research
• Immersive Technologies and Digital Twins
• Open Science, Data Governance, and Ethics
• Museum Innovation, Sustainability, and Practice

MORE ON THE MBD CONFERENCES SCOPE

Collections as Data and Research Readiness

• preparing collections for computational and analytical reuse
• data quality, uncertainty, provenance, and bias
• documentation as a research output
• reproducibility and transparency in collection-based research

Open Data, FAIR, and Reuse Beyond Access

• FAIR implementation in museums and other cultural heritage institutions
• interoperability across institutions and borders
• reuse metrics and evidence of research impact
• licensing, access models, and sustainability

Opening the AI Black Box

• explainable and trustworthy AI for cultural heritage
• human-in-the-loop and participatory AI approaches
• bias, ethics, and governance of algorithmic systems
• accountability and transparency in AI-driven interpretation

From Infrastructure to Practice

• research infrastructures and data spaces for cultural heritage
• integrating local collections into European and global platforms
• workflows connecting GLAM institutions and researchers
• long-term sustainability of digital infrastructures

Museums and Open Science

• museums as research-performing organisations
• data management plans and open research workflows
• citizen science and participatory research
• recognition and evaluation of non-traditional research outputs

Governance, Policy, and Institutional Change

• organisational strategies for open collections
• national and European policy frameworks
• legal and ethical dimensions of openness
• skills development and institutional transformation

Participation, Communities, and Co-creation

• engaging researchers, educators, and communities
• participatory data practices and shared authority
• crowdsourcing, annotation, and collaborative knowledge production
• inclusivity, representation, and social responsibility

Case Studies, Lessons Learned and any other relevant topics

• successful and unsuccessful implementations
• cross-institutional and cross-border collaborations
• Widening and non-Widening perspectives
• practical insights from real-world projects