2026

Spatial Data Science across Languages (SDSL) 2026

16-17 (+18) September, 2026, Jena, Germany

Goals

Spatial data science tools are not limited to a single programming language, with large communities organised around R, Python or Julia. The SDSL workshop provides a space to bridge the communities and establish cross-language interaction between developers and users. SDSL seeks to advance this field by bringing together the communities from the common and emerging programming languages used for data science to discuss interoperability, methodological developments, and shared challenges such as interfacing upstream libraries (including GDAL, GEOS, and PROJ), packaging and distributing software, and managing user and developer communities.

The previous installments 2023, 2024 and 2025 of the workshop identified several paths for common work. Challenges and recommendations from the first two workshops were published here. The fourth edition of SDSL plans to follow-up on earlier efforts as well as open the discussion on topics that have not been addressed so far. Topics and issues raised in previous editions will be pushed further through dedicated hackathons.

The topics you may expect to be part of the discussion include:

Topic list

• File formats and data connectivity
• Conventions and open standards
• Spherical geometries
• Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS)
• Web mapping, visualisation and image pyramids
• Big data handling and access including EO and STAC catalogs
• Cloud-optimized data formats
• Distributed data processing
• Spatial statistics and ML
• Interoperability between packages and languages
• Learning resources and teaching methods
• Communities, governance and funding models

However, the list is not exhaustive or fixed.

The goal of the workshop is to attract a maximum of 30 on-site attendees.

Venue

The workshop will be held on 16 & 17 September 2026, at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry.

The address is:

Mälzerstraße 5
07745 Jena
Germany

OpenStreetMap

There will be a Hackthon on 18 September 2026 at the main building of the Max Planck Institute.

The address is:

Hans-Knöll-Straße 10a 07745 Jena Germany

OpenStreetMap

Program Committee

• Fabian Gans
• Felix Cremer
• Anita Graser
• Martin Fleischmann
• Edzer Pebesma
• Maarten Pronk
• Yomna Eid

Local committee

• Mélanie Weynants
• Felix Cremer
• Fabian Gans
• Markus Zehner

In case of any queries, please contact Fabian (fabian.gans@bgc-jena.mpg.de).

Registration

Please register for on-site or online participation using this form until 31st of May 2026. Note that the number of on-site participants is limited. The programme committee will select the final list of on-site participants by end of July 2026.

Online Attendance

Online attendance to the main workshop will be possible.

Discord

SDSL has a Discord server that will be used for communication during the workshop. Please join via https://discord.gg/HJRKEJsmrr.

Program

The topic selection is preliminary and will be changed accordingly.

Wednesday 16th

Day 1: 9:00 - 17:00 CET

Thursday 17th

Day 2: 9:00 - 17:00 CET

Friday 18th

On-site Dev Day open for whoever wants to join and work on projects that arise during the workshop.

Supported by