GLAM Wiki Conference 2025 has wrapped. And now, after a few weeks of digesting and packing things up, we’re very happy to share some reflections and thoughts about the conference, where the GLAM Wiki community is now, and what amazing things have come from this time together.
The conference was held in Lisbon, Portugal, from October 30th to November 1st, at Iscte, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. The event was co-organized by Wikimedia Portugal and Wiki Editoras Lx, but it wouldn’t have happened without the support of volunteers who integrated into committees that guided scholarship and program decisions, as well as volunteers on the ground and our partners. On this page, you can find the lists with the core organizing team members, the scholarship committee, the program committee, and our list of partners and sponsors.
If you would like to learn more, our grant report is available here, where you can access many additional resources and information, including statistics from the evaluation survey (very positive results and feedback, by the way!), as well as guides from the committee’s work leading up to the conference.
An Interconnected Program
The three-day program had a central cohesive thread, the theme of the conference, which stitched together and integrated all sessions: ‘Resilience: Shaping the Future Through Community and Openness’. The program design also took this theme as a guiding star by dividing it into three subthemes, one for each day: ‘Building the Future of Cultural Heritage’, ‘Digital Resilience’, and ‘Community Resilience’. These subthemes were also the topic of the panels held at the start of each day and the keynote speeches.
If you would like to have a taste of how the conference went, all the auditorium sessions are available here on Commons, and all the media is available here in the Commons Category. All media is also linked from the program.
Resilience: Shaping the future through community and openness!
Resilience emerged not merely as a conference theme but as a living thread woven throughout every aspect of GLAM Wiki 2025. From program sessions exploring strategies to scholarship applications articulating personal and institutional journeys of transformation, resilience shaped both the formal agenda and the informal conversations that continued long after sessions concluded. What proved most striking was how this theme resonated far beyond the Wikimedia community itself—drawing cultural institutions alongside other Open Movement stakeholders into a dialogue about all aspects of resilience in the sector. This convergence of diverse actors demonstrated that resilience is not just a Wikimedia value, but a shared imperative for anyone committed to preserving and sharing knowledge in an era of unprecedented change. The theme’s pervasiveness created a unifying language that allowed participants from different contexts to recognize their common challenges and collaborative potential.
Global GLAM Strategy Session
This year marked a turning point for the GLAM Wiki community—a moment to transform aspiration into action! The occasion of the conference provided the opportunity to make plans together for a shared future and involve various stakeholders in the process. Together, the global GLAM Wiki community submitted a letter of intent to form a GLAM User Group, secured support from the Content Partnerships Hub for the coordination of Global GLAM calls for another year, and articulated 5 strategic pillars for GLAM activities.
The Global GLAM Strategy Session was co-developed throughout the year by a small group of the Program Committee, which had representatives from the community, Wikimedia Affiliate staff, and the Wikimedia Foundation. The objective of the workshop was twofold: to map interdependencies between GLAM entities, communities, and support structures; and to define interdependencies and promote practical and actionable outcomes for GLAM activities going forward.
During the workshop, we had two facilitators, Abdul Dube and Mona Ebdrup, who guided those present to reach our outcomes through a hands-on, action-focused methodology. The participants started the day by mapping the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Later on, these were all combined into different leverage points and strategies for action, and the 5 pillars emerged:
- Robust Technical Infrastructure:
- The group proposed a GLAM Wiki technical roadmap for 2026, by having a working group and a map of technical necessities and clear priorities.
- Small GLAMs:
- This table discussed how to broaden the scope of GLAM contributions beyond Wikipedia and the possibility of creating a toolkit to guide small GLAMs to engage with the Wikimedia projects.
- Small Languages:
- This group documented the importance of bridging the language and accessibility gaps to bring contributions from minority languages through technical skills.
- Community (Mental) Health:
- Participants highlighted the necessity of having better community mental health as a priority and established the objective to reinforce community care by having more mentorship roles and spaces for having fun.
- GLAM Recognition:
- The group debated GLAM Wiki recognition on many levels, from mapping of stakeholders and their interactions to define strategy priorities, to being recognised as a user group.
In general, each pillar will serve as a guide and base for GLAM-related activities in different affiliates, in other conferences, for the Global GLAM calls, for the monthly newsletter, and much, much more! We hope to see detailed plans emerge and be co-developed in the community and carried forward in 2026 and for many years to come. For now, the workshop outputs are documented here.
In-person Matters!
As organizers, we prioritized creating meaningful in-person connections in Lisbon. We embedded this commitment throughout the conference design in several ways. To remove financial barriers, we provided 55 international scholarships, 35 local scholarships, and 25 volunteer positions, enabling broad participation regardless of personal resources. We also designed the program around interactive, collaborative sessions that fostered genuine connections between participants—a requirement we built into the submission process from the start. The incredible feedback we received after the conference supports this effort, and we’re glad to see this result.
We gave international scholarships to 4 people from East, South East Asia and the Pacific, 4 people from South Asia, 7 people from Latin America, 5 people from Central and Eastern Europe, 7 people from Northern and Western Europe, 21 people from Sub-Saharan Africa, 2 people from North America, and 4 people from the Middle East and North Africa. Unfortunately, due to declined visas and other circumstances, 14 people were not able to reach the conference.
Social and Environmental Impact
International conferences continue to have a huge environmental impact, so it was important for us to create plans that were environmentally conscious.
- We didn’t produce any swag. Instead, we hired a local artist and craftsman to provide screen printing, so any participant could print their own poster or print the conference logo on their own notebook, bag, or t-shirt.
- We hired a social-business caterer that works with local producers and minority communities, and all the leftover food was donated each day to a food bank.
- Scholarship recipients received a travel pass for the public transportation network, and their hotel was less than a 5-minute walk from the venue.
Not all of these choices are going to be possible in all contexts, but in our case, we could make these decisions and impact in a meaningful way.
Highlighting the Portuguese Language and Culture
In this particular conference, it was also crucial for the organizing team to highlight the Portuguese language and culture. To achieve this, we chose to open the conference in the local language, Portuguese, and following that, to have the very first panel, ‘Building the Future of Cultural Heritage’, entirely in Portuguese with presenters from Portuguese-speaking countries, and discussing their experiences with cultural heritage.
Another way of incorporating Portuguese culture into the conference was through cultural activities. On the side, before and during the entire conference, we had optional cultural tours. After registering, participants were able to take part in some of the 15 activities and learn more about GLAM institutions around Lisbon, sometimes guided by specialists and staff from those institutions. For example, participants could visit the Júlio Pomar Atelier-Museum, where they saw the ‘Neorrealismos’ exhibition, watch movies at the Cinemateca Portuguesa, or even discover the secrets beneath Lisbon’s streets during the Patriarcal Reservoir and Loreto Gallery tours.
Finally, we also held an entirely Portuguese-speaking workshop at the National Library of Portugal. Participants from the culture and heritage sector in Portugal, who may not have had previous experience with Wikimedia tools and platforms, were shown all the different applications for various sectors and their broad scope and positive impact. There were 9 different activities throughout the day, including copyright and legal questions, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, and structured data.
Stories From the Community:
The organizers, Wikimedia Portugal and Wiki Editoras Lx, would like to thank everyone who participated, contributed, collaborated, and enjoyed the conference, who were with us in Lisbon, and from everywhere in the world watching online.
We are grateful for the support of the Wikimedia Foundation, the Content Enablement Team, the Grants Team, and the Travel Team for their incredible support and care.
If you would like to know more about GLAM Wiki activities, stay tuned on this page on Meta-Wiki.
To get in touch with the organizers, feel free to email glamwiki25@wikimedia.pt.
Here are some other amazing stories that have already been shared here on Diff and elsewhere that you should check out as well:
- Professor Anne Hunnell Chen Recognized by Wikimedia
- My First GLAM Wiki Conference – Lisbon, Portugal
- A Journey Through GLAM Wiki 2025: When Knowledge Becomes Connection
- From Dagbani Wikipedia to GLAM Wiki Portugal: A Journey of Growth and Connection
- EduWiki Hub in Action: Highlights from WECUDI 2025 and GLAM Wiki 2025
- From Lisbon to you: Tune in for GLAM Wiki 2025 online
- Greetings from Lisbon: My GLAM Wiki Story
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