How to reinforce collaboration among Wikimedia, GLAMs and Research

Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects are infrastructures of engagement: open, inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable platforms, already designed to support new models of collaboration across academia, memory institutions, GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) and society, and to enable co-creation, citizen science, the public and participatory humanities, and community-driven, engaged scholarship.

Many GLAMs and researchers collaborate with Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia affiliates and volunteers support GLAMs in implementing open access and uploading content to Wikimedia platforms, and they organise training at universities to foster Open Science and scholarly communication by facilitating contributions to Wikimedia projects from students and PhD candidates through specific courses. Wikibase is developed by Wikimedia Deutschland and is the open-source software created for Wikidata, available to researchers and GLAMs, and promoted and supported by the DARIAH-EU Working Group DHwiki. The network of DARIAH has GLAM working groups and DARIAH-EU has created the Heritage Data Reuse Charter to facilitate collaboration between researchers and GLAMs.

Despite numerous collaborations, few initiatives fully consider together the three elements: Wikimedia, GLAMs, and research. GLAMs are rarely treated as research units, even though research is part of their duties; universities are rarely considered GLAMs, even if they have libraries, archives and often museums; researchers frequently rely on Wikidata but seldom contribute to it with their research results; the Heritage data Reuse Charter considers the collaborations between researchers and GLAMs but does not include online open communities.

This panel explores current and future collaborations between Wikimedia, GLAMs and research. With the involvement of representatives from all communities, it presents the strengths and challenges of the current situation and discusses possible strategies to enhance broader, more comprehensive cooperation.

The panel comprises representatives from Wikimedia, GLAM, ICOM, Creative Commons, DARIAH-EU Working Group DHwiki, DARIAH Working Group GLAM, and researchers in those areas. Since the event takes place in Rome, Italy, the panel includes representatives from Italian institutions in order to facilitate participation and to benefit from the numerous ongoing collaborations between Wikimedia Italia and GLAM institutions. The panel has the patronage of DARIAH-EU Working Group DHwiki and Wikimedia Italia.

Speakers:

Iolanda Pensa, Senior researcher at SUPSI, member of DARIAH-CH, national coordinator GLAM at Wikimedia Italia (and former chair). 0000-0001-5122-7385. Chair and moderator.

Camillo Pellizzari di San Girolamo, Scuola Normale Superiore / DARIAH-EU WG DHwiki, 0000-0003-2699-1693

Elena Marangoni, board member of Wikimedia Italia, librarian at the University of Turin, active on Wikidata 0000-0002-9709-3404

Anna Maria Marras, Research Associate, Historical Department - University of Turin / ICOM Italia Coordinator of the Digital Technologies for Cultural Heritage Commission, 0000-0001-5504-6899

Deborah De Angelis, Creative Commons Italia, Lawyer and KR21 National Coordinator, 0009-0003-8414-7359

Astrid D'Eredità, Parco Archeologico del Colosseo, Archaeologist - Digital Media Curator; Head of Cartography and Photography; Communication, Public Relations, and Special Projects Service, 0000-0002-0494-1823

Christos Varvantakis, Wikimedia Deutschland / DARIAH-EU WG DHwiki, 0000-0003-0808-2795

DARIAH-EU, Università degli Studi Roma Tre - Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, 26-29/05/2026, CC BY-SA 4.0.