Submissions are invited for the 20th Munin Conference which will take place in Tromsø, at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, on 18–20 November 2025.

Topics

The Munin Conference addresses a broad variety of topics in scholarly communication, with a focus on open science. This year’s Munin especially encourages submissions on the following topics:

  • Open science in a closing world
  • Indigenous rights in research
  • Transparency and replicability in science
  • Repairing the gaps in research infrastructure
  • Agency

Open science in a closing world

Looking at a world with an increasing conflict level, how can scientific communication navigate to stay free of government reins? We see government-initiated disinformation rallies and censorship, politicians denying scientific research results, and Artificial Intelligence tools being able to create what could look like scholarship. The ethos of science is the free exchange of information, but in the context of military conflicts – along with economic and information warfare – information becomes a strategic commodity.

What is the future of open science in this situation? Is open science in danger, or is it (part of) the solution?

Indigenous rights in research

For scientific progress to be a common good for all of society, all populations should be included. Indigenous perspectives are central to the research processes that concern them and impact their communities directly. In recent years there have been initiatives aiming to secure – through ethical and effective collaboration – perspectives of indigenous populations on how research involving these populations should be conducted and shared. Examples are the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, Traditional Knowledge Labels, the 4 R’s in higher education (Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, Responsibility), and decolonizing methodologies in research.

We welcome contributions that address challenges and ethical dilemmas, and showcase best practices exploring how we can balance cultural sensitivity with open science, and how open science can be inclusive and respectful of indigenous rights and perspectives.

Transparency and replicability in science

To face the global challenges of today and counter low trust in science, it is pivotal that scientific practice is rigorous and transparent and that the output is reliable. Sound policy decisions and groundbreaking innovations must be based on robust results.

Following the replication crisis and the unveiling of the low ability of several fields of research to replicate their findings, many measures have been proposed to ameliorate the situation. For example: more rigorous use of inferential statistics, preregistering studies, open sharing of notebooks, code and data, running large studies across several laboratories, revising the peer review process, and skewing the research and publication system towards replication studies and publishing null and negative results.

Due to its importance, transparency is a frequent topic at the Munin conference. We welcome abstracts from all parts of academia that address challenges, propose solutions or showcase best practices within transparency or replicability in research.

Repairing the gaps in research infrastructure

For research infrastructure to function well and serve its purpose, the platforms and services need to cater for the needs of researchers across disciplines, and they also need to be sustainable, transparent and interconnected in an efficient way.

Sustainability of the journal publishing sector has enjoyed a considerable level of attention lately, whereas the same cannot be said about books and repositories (both for publications and data). Today, much of the research metadata is kept behind paywalls and their inner workings within proprietary black boxes. The scholarly community has come to recognize the significance of openly available and reusable research metadata, collected and managed in a transparent way – so that the research infrastructure can support fair and responsible research assessment and make knowledge findable and accessible to researchers, decision makers and innovators.

We welcome contributions that reflect on the current state of research infrastructure, examine the gaps that are in dire need of repair, and suggest possible solutions.

Agency

How can we accelerate the transition to open science? A key element is agency. Human and financial resources need to be pooled together in new ways. Scholars need to take the lead and make their voices heard. University librarians and research administrators need to develop services and policies helping scholars practice open science. Funders need to change their funding schemes to promote the transition to scholar-led publishing and foster openness and transparency. At times, we need to act and take a leap into the uncertain. At this year’s Munin Conference, we encourage stakeholders that have been involved in agency on institutional or grass-root level to share their stories and bold ideas on how to bring forth action in the sector.

How to submit

Submission formats include traditional conference formats such as presentations (20 min + 5 min Q&A), panels, and onsite posters. In addition, we strongly encourage you to propose interactive sessions (workshops, roundtables, or other types of unconference sessions).

When submitting a proposal for a workshop, note that you will have to choose between a 90-minute or a 180-minute session.

Panels, which can be up to 1 hour, should contain 3–4 panelists. You need to suggest a minimum of 3 participants (including yourself), and the panelist candidates must have agreed to participate in the panel before you submit your proposal. All the panel participants must be physically present at the conference. You may also suggest a panel chair, but the conference committee can assist you on this.

For all types of submissions except posters, you will be able to indicate whether you would need participants to prepare for your session.

Please submit your proposal via this form. If you have another proposal, you will need to send in a separate submission via the form.

Abstracts should contain enough information for the committee to be able to evaluate the proposal; the length of an abstract should be between 1400 and 3000 characters incl. spaces.

After evaluation, the committee will invite the accepted proposals to be submitted (with all the necessary metadata) to the Munin 2025 issue of Septentrio Conference Series, where the abstracts will be made available before the conference.

Important dates

The deadline to submit your proposals is June 20. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in the course of the summer, no later than September 1.