UC Open 2026 issues call for proposals from UC community and industry partners
The University of California Open Source Program Office (UC OSPO) Network invites researchers, developers, students, and industry leaders to submit proposals for the UC Open 2026, scheduled for April 22 – 23 at the David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley.
Building on the success of last year’s inaugural summit at the UCSC Silicon Valley Campus, this meeting will explore the academic open source landscape and opportunities for industry engagement with academic open source software and hardware. The two-day summit offers a platform to showcase emerging projects, build cross-campus collaborations, and discuss efforts to support open source innovation in higher education.
Call for Proposals The UC Open call for proposals is open through February 15, 2026. The committee invites submissions for panels (45 minutes), presentations (15 minutes), workshops (75 minutes), directed discussions (45 minutes), and posters.
Key topics for this year’s summit include:
- UC research in open source and open scholarship
- AI’s impact on open source
- Industry-academic collaboration models
- Research software infrastructure and sustainability
- Digital public goods and public benefit
Successful applicants will be notified by March 3. To submit a proposal, visit the UC Open 2026 event page.
A Growing Tradition
The 2026 event follows a highly successful 2025 summit, which brought together nearly 125 participants for discussions on community-building, emerging projects, DEI in open source, and technology transfer. This year’s move to Berkeley signals the Network’s collaborative working paradigm and underscores its effort to invite participation from across California and the country.
Launched in 2024 with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the UC OSPO Network is the first system-wide network of Open Source Program Offices in a large university system. It is a distributed team across UC campuses that is working to build open source awareness and establish best practices for open source development. By leveraging the unique strengths of each campus, the UC OSPO Network supports a large community of students, researchers, and staff, representing a new model for academic support.
For more information on the meeting, sponsorship, or how to submit a proposal, please visit ucospo.net/events/uc-open-2026.