Re-Defining Open Social Scholarship in an Age of Generative ‘Intelligence’

4-5 June 2026
Montréal, Québec
INKE 2026 Gathering
Submissions via this link (due 1 February 2026)

Call for papers

Re-Defining Open Social Scholarship in an Age of Generative ‘Intelligence’ — the 13th annual gathering of the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE; inke.ca) Partnership — will coincide with the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Digital Humanities / La société canadienne des humanités numériques (CSDH/SCHN; csdh-schn.ca) and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI; dhsi.org) on the campus of Université de Montréal, 4-5 June 2026. It continues themes explored at the recent gathering of the Canadian Australian Partnership for Open Scholarship (CAPOS), aligned with the conference of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH; aa-dh.org), 2-3 December 2025 in Canberra.

Here, we continue our aim to mobilize knowledge, research, and professional experience around the benefits and challenges of developing and maintaining open scholarship in the current age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital platforms, as well as how best to coordinate open scholarship policies in ways that connect with related activities across Canada, Australia, and globally. The gathering also continues our tradition of celebrating and reflecting on the important, ongoing work of the open scholarship community.

Open scholarship emphasizes the social nature of knowledge, along with community-driven initiatives, outreach, and partnerships that aim to close gaps between academic theory, research, and communities beyond academic specialists. Even though many researchers now have unprecedented opportunities to share and collaborate with each other and the public, much scholarship still remains inaccessible to wider audiences. In contrast to this reality, open scholarship asserts that research publications, datasets, educational resources, and other output should be accessible to all.

Rapid advancements in AI, coupled with the expansion of open access research and digital infrastructures, are transforming open social research, public discourse, and creative practice. These shifts—spanning environmental, communal, social, creative, epistemic, and economic structures—demand urgent critical inquiry into the future of knowledge itself. Along with other disciplines, creative practice—itself a form of knowledge production in the academy and the wider world—is experiencing these shifts acutely. Moreover, the ‘data deluge’ in all disciplines presents both new possibilities and pressing challenges for digital researchers and engaged publics alike. Yet, while these issues are widely acknowledged across various fields, too often discussions remain siloed.

Together, we will consider how best to model open social scholarship practices, as well as pursue the following general themes (and beyond):

  • Community: How can we foster humanities and social sciences research, development, community building, and engagement through online, omnipresent, and open community spaces?
  • Training: How can we adapt existing training opportunities and develop new opportunities in emerging areas to meet academic, partner, and public needs for open scholarship training?
  • Connection: How can humanities and social sciences researchers collaborate more closely with the general public? What are the best ways to bring the public into our work, as well as for bringing our work to the public?
  • Policy: How do we ensure that research on pressing open scholarship topics is accessible to a diverse public, including those who develop organizational or national policy?

We invite you to join in conversations and share collaborative work in digital scholarship around the following questions, and other topics pertinent to our community beyond:

  • How can open social scholarship, with its focus on community, openness, and engagement, provide more generous frameworks for understanding and shaping the shifts brought about by an increasingly algorithmic culture(s)?
  • What opportunities and challenges do AI-driven systems present for the knowledge commons, public platforms, and scholarly engagement?
  • What is the place of creative works and artistic practice within an evolving knowledge commons?
  • How do we balance innovation with stewardship, maintenance, and preservation imperatives that are needed by cultural data?
  • What is the future of the public domain and the platforms and collaborations required to sustain it?
  • If AI relies on published works for its learning, how might we ensure reciprocal relationships are in place for those creating these works? And how might these relations be protected from exploitation?
  • How do we avoid the risks of algorithmic monoculture and the homogenization of cultural formats and outputs?

Submission and Notification

  • Submissions: before 1 February 2026 via this link
  • Notification: Following peer review of submissions, corresponding authors or project leads will be notified by 15 February 2026.

Questions?

Don’t hesitate for reach out, via etcl@uvic.ca!