Collaborative Harmony: The Dynamic Evolution of the Dataverse Community

June 12, 2023

The Dataverse Project Team has just returned from the 9th annual Dataverse Community Meeting that took place at the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, from June 5th to 7th, 2023. This regional community meeting marked a significant milestone as it paved the way for the participation of the 100 Dataverse installations worldwide in hosting future meetings. The 2024 Community Meeting will be hosted by The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), one of fifteen CGIAR research centers, located in Mexico.

Just a few days before the meeting, the Dataverse Project achieved a momentous milestone—100 installations and counting! This in-person gathering of like-minded individuals reinforced the fact that we are part of an extraordinary and ever-expanding community. Although time has passed, Gary King's vision continues to resonate within the community. The keynote speech delivered by Mercè Crosas, Head of Computational Social Sciences Programme at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, was inspiring, and we unveiled a range of exciting new features for Dataverse. These include big data support, map and zip-file previewers, geo-spatial search, and much more. The response to these updates has been nothing short of phenomenal, and our community couldn't be happier! We also hosted exclusive workshops tailored for curators and developers, presented talks, and led panel discussions. And let us not forget the highly anticipated re-architecture project, which has been a long-awaited solution for many and is finally becoming a reality.

We extend our gratitude to the planning committee for collaborating to orchestrate such a tremendous event. The committee included members of the IQSS Dataverse Project team, University of Minho, Global Dataverse Community Consortium, and The French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD). We look forward to seeing the community at CIMMYT, Mexico in 2024!