On 23 March 2026, the Swiss Research Data Support Network (SRDSN) gathered in Lugano for its spring meeting at the Campus universitario USI/SUPSI, bringing together around 70 participants on site and online. The day began with a relaxed welcome coffee, as colleagues caught up on the latest news and new faces joined the community.

The official programme opened with remarks from the organizing committee, followed by the introduction of the new research data manager at USI, Paulo Santos, and an overview of local ORD activities. The Steering Committee then shared the latest developments from the network, including a preview of the upcoming two-day conference on 19–20 November. Before the first coffee break, Alain Borel introduced Solidipes, a tool created by an EPFL researcher to assist with data curation. The brief presentation, which included a live demo, generated a lot of interest.

After a short break with coffee and croissants, Moushumi Ulrich-Nath and Noémi Duperron provided updates from the Data Stewardship Coordinator Node. Matthias Rösslein then demonstrated how AI tools such as Elevenlabs and HeyGen can be used to create educational videos, offering a glimpse into new possibilities for knowledge transfer. Rok Roškar followed with a presentation on Renku, an open-source platform that brings research data to life by enabling seamless reuse through integration with data repositories. Martin Wegmann introduced the idea of a Red vs. Green Team Hackathon—an interactive format where teams attempt to de-anonymize data and then strengthen its protection. Martin took the opportunity to gauge whether there was interest in such an event within the Swiss community. The morning concluded with the traditional group photo before participants headed off for lunch.

The afternoon session opened with Olivia Denk’s look back at three years of the national chapter of CoARA reflecting on progress and lessons learned. Diego Tres and Clemens Schroeder then introduced the Switch Research Data Archive, prompting a lively exchange with the audience. In their presentation, Katharina Lobinger and Anna Picco-Schwendener highlighted the specific challenges of visual social research and shared their recommendations, along with the platform codevis.org. Further details will be presented in their workshops in May. The high level of interest and discussion throughout the sessions led to a slight adjustment of the schedule and an earlier coffee break.

In the final part of the day, Sebastian Perrig offered insights into how research data management and support can function in a highly decentralized and multidisciplinary context. Francesco Varrato delivered a concise overview of key findings from a large-scale RDM survey, and Olga Churakova closed the programme with thoughtful recommendations on ethics in research data management.

The meeting closed with warm thanks to the host institutions, USI and SUPSI, as well as to all speakers and participants—both on site and online—whose contributions made the event a success. The next regular meeting will take place in the spring of 2027. Before then, we hope to see you all again at the SRDSN conference on the Gurten in November.