OSM Science 2026 - Call for Abstracts

 

OSM Science 2026

OSM Science 2026 (also known as the Academic Track of State of the Map) is an annual international meeting focused on the scientific study of OpenStreetMap (OSM). The 9th edition of OSM Science will be part of the State of the Map 2026 conference, taking place on August 28-30 in Paris (France), where a full day of in-person sessions will be dedicated to scientific research about, and with, OpenStreetMap (see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018 editions). The goal of OSM Science 2026 is to showcase the research and innovation of scientific investigations into OpenStreetMap, while at the same time providing a bridge to connect members of the OpenStreetMap community and the scientific community through an open platform to exchange ideas and opportunities for increased collaboration. We expect empirical, methodological, conceptual, or literature-review-based contributions addressing any scientific aspect related to OpenStreetMap, in particular, but not limited to:

  • Data collection, integration and quality analysis in OpenStreetMap;
  • Contribution patterns and the human/social dimensions of the OpenStreetMap community;
  • The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, generative AI and other applications in which OpenStreetMap plays a central role.
  • Studies describing the use of OpenStreetMap data in domain-specific and/or policy-relevant.
  • Applications and studies that combine OpenStreetMap with authoritative spatial data to enhance analysis, validation, or decision-making.

Submission Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit extended abstracts using the OSM Science 2026 Pretalx submission system. Deadline for submission is 27 April 2026.

Abstracts should be between 800 and 1200 words.

Abstracts must be scientifically rigorous, and the content should be logically structured as follows (without the need to include subsections): introduction/background, where the problem addressed is introduced; main aim or purpose of the study; brief description of the methodology and findings achieved; final discussion highlighting the scientific contribution of the study and its practical benefits/implications. Contributions describing applications or usage of OSM data with no scientific novelty/innovation will be rejected.

In the evaluation of proposals, the scientific committee will pay particular attention to the reproducibility of the research (where this is applicable). Reproducibility is ensured when the research makes all artifacts (input data, computational steps, methods and code) openly available to obtain consistent results. When available, the code shall be released under an open source license.

Abstracts are to be submitted online (see link below) in plain-text format. You have the possibility to submit up to 3 figures that will accompany your submission, demonstrating the results already produced by the research. This is optional and not mandatory. Figures should be added only whether/when necessary and must be clear and legible. All figures must be referenced in the text and clearly numbered according to the order in which they appear in the text.

Abstracts will be evaluated by the scientific committee and external reviewers, when needed. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to deliver an in-person oral presentation or an in-person lightning talk during the OSM Science 2026 sessions at the conference. Building on top of the successful proceedings of previous editions of the Academic Track (2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019), authors of the selected submissions will be required to submit extended abstracts (up to four pages in length and including a maximum of one figure). These extended abstracts will be published in the OSM Science 2025 Conference Proceedings, each with a distinct Digital Object Identifier (DOI) in Zenodo, an open access online repository.

The 2019 and 2020 Academic Track resulted in a special issue of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. Similarly and upon interest from the authors of the abstracts, the scientific committee may seek to further disseminate the contributions to this conference by investigating the organization of a special issue in a relevant, open access, scientific journal. In such a case, authors of the selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper to this special issue. Successful submissions may benefit from partial or full waiver of publication fees.

Timeline and Deadlines

  • 27 April 2026: Deadline OSM-Science talk submissions
  • 15 June 2026: Notification of acceptance / rejection
  • 29 June 2026: Program announcement
  • 1 August 2026: Camera ready copy for proceedings deadline
  • 28-30 August 2026: OSM Science at State of the Map 2026

Submit your presentation proposal

Please submit your presentation proposal for OSM-Science 2026 to our specific submission form.

Academic Track Co-chairs and Committee

You can reach the academic track committee via email to academic-sotm@openstreetmap.org. Questions related specifically to the OSM-Science/Academic Track of SotM 2026 should be directed to the committee.

Dr. Marco Minghini

European Commission - Joint Research Centre, JRC, Ispra, Italy.

Marco’s career as a researcher started at Politecnico di Milano, where he got a PhD in GIS in 2014 and a post-doctoral fellowship in the GIS group of GEOlab. In 2018 he joined the European Commission - Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, where he currently works as a Scientific Project Officer and Policy Analyst, supporting EU policies around (geo)data sharing. Marco is an advocate of open source software and open data and has a longstanding experience in OSM both as a contributor and as a researcher. He is a Charter Member of OSGeo, Chair of ISPRS ICWG IV/III/II “Openness in Geospatial Science and Remote Sensing”, Member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation and Voting Member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.

Dr. A. Yair Grinberger

Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Yair earned his PhD in Geography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studying human mobility behaviors using GPS traces. During his postdoctoral research at the GIScience Research Group in Heidelberg University, Germany he focused on large-scale data production events in OpenStreetMap and their effects. In his current research Yair studies, among other issues, the co-construction of mapping practices and data outputs. His broader research interests include Geographic Information Science, critical GIS, and digital representations of cultural and social phenomena and issues.

Dr. Peter Mooney

Department of Computer Science, Maynooth University, Ireland

Peter is an Associate Professor at the Dept. of Computer Science in Maynooth University and has been working in the domain of geospatial data research for almost two decades. He is particularly interested in understanding the processes behind the collection of VGI data and how computing techniques such as machine learning can be applied to these datasets and sources. He is heavily involved in OSGeo activities in Ireland. His teaching philosophy sees the exclusive use of FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geomatics) and Open Data for all student teaching and learning activities. He is currently an editor of the Transactions in GIS journal.

Dr. Ana-Maria Olteanu-Raimond

LASTIG, Gustave Eiffel University, Géodata Paris, and French National Mapping Agency (IGN)

Ana-Maria is a Senior Researcher in the LASTIG laboratory (Laboratory on Geographic Information Science for Sustainable Development and Smart Cities) from Gustave Eiffel University, Géodata Paris, and French National Mapping Agency (IGN). Her current methodological research interests include heterogeneous spatial data integration, imperfect information fusion, collaborative mechanisms and quality assessment of volunteered geographic information, including OpenStreetMap for joint use with authoritative spatial data. Her thematic research are focused on Land Use Land Cover Mapping, sustainability mobility and tourism, cities evolutions. She is currently the deputy-director of the LASTIG, action-editor of Geoinformatica journal, as well as the co-head of the GDR CNRS MAGIS French Research Action : Volunteered geographic information and crowdsourcing.

Dr. Julien Perret

LASTIG, Gustave Eiffel University, Paris.

Julien is a senior researcher at the LASTIG lab, a research group in Geographic Information sciences. His research interest include geohistorical data, spatial humanities and geospatial simulation.

Dr. Juste Raimbault

LASTIG, Gustave Eiffel University, Paris.

Juste is a Permanent Research Fellow in Sustainable Development at Institut Géographique National, Géodata Paris, LaSTIG laboratory, and an Honorary Research Fellow at CASA, UCL. His research interests include the modelling and simulation of complex urban systems, land-use transport interactions, agent-based modelling, artificial life for urban systems, and bibliometrics. He also focuses on methodology, developing new methods for the validation of spatial simulation models such as spatial sensitivity analysis. He is a contributor to the OpenMOLE platform for model exploration and validation. He is associate director of the Cybergeo journal, responsible for the GeOpenMod section.

Dr. Anna Zanchetta

The Alan Turing Institute, London, United Kingdom

Anna is a Research Fellow based at the Alan Turing Institute in London, currently collaborating with HOT - the Humanitarian Openstreetmap Team, and HeiGIT - Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology. She has been active in open source and geospatial for the last 15 years, acting mostly in academic roles where she investigates and promotes the use of open tools and mapping, to tackle social inequality and enhance environmental sustainability.