March 10, 2026

SORTEE Conference 2026 - save the date

Virtual, world-wide, 13-14 October 2026

The 2026 SORTEE conference will run continuously for 24 hours from 13 October to 14 October to cover all time zones. The conference will be FREE for SORTEE members, and ranging from $0 to $60 for non-SORTEE members. Become a member!

To join the mailing list and receive conference updates, click here. We send a maximum of 8 emails a year.

The conference is a forum to discuss and develop ideas, while also exploring current practices for advancing research in fields related to open science in ecology and evolutionary biology.

The conference will be a mix of 5 session types:

Unconferences: Facilitated discussions of ideas for how to make ecology, evolutionary biology, and related disciplines more open, reliable, and transparent.
Hackathons: Group projects with well-defined goals (papers, techniques, software, protocols, organizations, etc.).
Workshops: Facilitators will teach tools to implement open, reliable, and transparent practices.
Plenaries: Two plenaries about recent initiatives in open science.
Introductions to open science: Two sessions dedicated to people new to open science.

To have an idea of what a SORTEE conference looks like, check out the last SORTEE conference program here and the summary of previous conferences at https://www.sortee.org/past.

Content submissions will soon open on this page

To have a great conference, we need motivating events and facilitators! We invite anyone interested in facilitating an unconference, a hackathon or a workshop to submit their content. You don’t have to be a SORTEE member. Content submissions will open soon on this web page.

Contact

Don’t hesitate to contact us at conference@sortee.org if you have any questions.

Accessibility

SORTEE conferences are held online via Zoom. To attend a SORTEE conference, you will need a computer with a reliable internet connection in a quiet space, preferably with a webcam. The online Zoom format was chosen to make the conference accessible to more people, since travel can be expensive or impossible for some. Registration is free for SORTEE members and membership itself may be free depending on your status (join at https://www.sortee.org/join).

Joining from Europe, Africa, the Americas, Oceania or Asia? SORTEE conferences run for over 24 hours to accommodate all time zones, so there will be interesting sessions in yours.

Afraid you won’t understand and won’t be able to participate in English? The conference is fully transcribed, allowing you to read automatic transcripts in real time. At the 2025 SORTEE conference, it was even possible to translate the transcript into your own language instantly. We encourage everyone to participate, regardless of your English proficiency or social confidence. If participants want to contribute or ask a question, they have to raise their hand on Zoom (session facilitators will give them the floor in turn) or write in the chat (all chat comments are addressed and read aloud by the session facilitator). SORTEE has chosen not to record sessions (except for the plenary talk), as recordings can sometimes discourage people from speaking freely.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding accessibility and diversity at SORTEE conferences, or if you face any barriers to attending, please contact us at conference@sortee.org or complete this anonymous accessibility form. Responses are shared only with the SORTEE conference committee and board of directors.

About SORTEE conferences

A SORTEE conference is an online forum featuring many interactive sessions, all about making research in fields related to ecology and evolutionary biology more open, transparent and reliable. At a SORTEE conference, participants:

Discuss current research practices / tools or develop new ones during unconferences;
Launch collaborative projects with clear goals — such as data analysis, paper or protocol writing, software development, or advocacy — during hackathons;
Learn about practical tools and practices during workshops and introductions to open science;
Get inspired during plenary talks.

Participants connect with a strong community of researchers from around the world and across career stages. Everyone leaves feeling inspired, motivated, and empowered to adopt open science in their own work and to promote it within their wider communities.