HMC Conference – Bringing the metadata community together

The HMC Conference is the annual flagship event of the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC) – a meeting place for researchers, data stewards, developers, infrastructure experts, and communities working to advance metadata and FAIR research data.

Since its first edition in 2022, the conference has created a forum for exchange across disciplines, research domains, and infrastructures. Each year, a dedicated theme puts a different aspect of metadata into focus – from semantics, standards, and interoperability to metadata quality, research workflows, AI, Open Science, and the role of metadata in enabling meaningful reuse.

The conference has grown and evolved together with its community. After three virtual editions, including more than 200 participants from 19 countries in 2024, HMC Conference moved to an in-person format in 2025. The first on-site edition brought together around 160 participants from 48 institutions, followed by almost 200 participants from 65 institutions in 2026. Across the 2024–2026 editions alone, more than 200 talks, posters, and demos showcased current research, practical solutions, tools, and community-driven approaches.

Beyond the scientific programme, the HMC Conference creates space for discussion, hands-on exchange, networking, and new collaborations – bringing together perspectives that often face similar metadata challenges from very different disciplinary and technical angles.

HMC Conference 2027 – From Metadata to Meaning

How does metadata create meaning in research?

The next HMC Conference will take place 10–12 March 2027 at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe.

Under the theme “From Metadata to Meaning,” the conference will explore how metadata provides the context that allows research data to be understood, connected, and reused by both people and machines.

Researchers, data stewards, developers, and research infrastructure experts are invited to exchange ideas, share solutions, and explore how metadata enables interpretation, interoperability, and meaningful reuse across disciplines and infrastructures.

The Call for Abstracts and Call for Workshop Proposals will be open soon.

Previous HMC Conferences

Explore programmes, contributions, Books of Abstracts, and further materials from previous editions: