{"id":987,"date":"2026-04-07T15:30:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/opening-research\/?p=987"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:30:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:30:03","slug":"ai-austerity-and-authoritarianism-contemporary-challenges-in-digital-curation-at-the-international-digital-curation-conference-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/opening-research\/2026\/04\/ai-austerity-and-authoritarianism-contemporary-challenges-in-digital-curation-at-the-international-digital-curation-conference-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"AI, austerity, and authoritarianism: contemporary challenges in digital curation\u00a0at the International Digital Curation Conference 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Art Pavilion in Zagreb<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Earlier this year, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the 20th<\/sup> International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC)<\/a> in Zagreb, Croatia. The IDCC \u201cis an established annual event with a unique place in the digital curation community, reaching out to individuals, organisations and institutions across all disciplines and domains involved in curating data and providing an opportunity to get together with like-minded data practitioners to discuss policy and practice<\/em>\u201d (Digital Curation Centre, 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was particularly humbling and inspiring to see more than 200 colleagues from institutions across the world who proactively try to improve not only open research practice, but the support we give researchers in engaging with these practices. The theme for this year\u2019s event was AI, austerity, and authoritarianism: contemporary challenges in digital curation. The posters and presentations are openly available in the IDCC26 Conference Materials Zenodo collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the keynote talks were very inspiring. During the opening talk<\/a>, Antica \u010culina spoke passionately about open research practices such as preregistration, open data, open code and preprints. It was discussed whether they can be truly and sustainably achievable, while considering the infrastructure necessary, the culture supporting them and the incentives that would stimulate engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The closing talk encouraged librarians and other people who curate knowledge to be resilient when facing difficult times, funding uncertainty and authoritarianism. Lynda Kellam and Mikala Narlock delivered a powerful talk about the Data Rescue Project<\/a>, reminding us of our individual and collective responsibilities as curators or creators of knowledge. It was suggested that we may need to change the way we work. They advocated for \u201cembracing redundancy\u201d of files and that duplicating work and having more than two back-ups can sometimes prove beneficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Using new technologies to streamline processes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As you can probably imagine, many sessions discussed making the work of data curators, or researchers, more efficient through automation, either with innovative programs, or with AI. Regarding the use of AI, it was questioned whether existing open-source or commercial tools should be trusted. As an alternative, the use of in-house AI tools was also discussed. One such talk among many was Enhancing the Benefits of Machine-Actionable DMPs with Generative AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Who will automation help?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A matter for debate is whether using such tools would actually save us time, or simply change our process of ensuring that the output is sufficiently robust. Who would it even save time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n