FedOSC Webinar – Current Federal Open Data Landscape – a virtual tour

The FedOSC Learning Community hosted, on March 11th, 2026, this 90-minute online webinar dedicated to the Belgian federal open data landscape. The event was designed as a virtual tour of FAIR-by-design tools and services that were already in place at that time, complemented by insights into a few stories and projects around boosting federal FAIRness. Showcasing members of the BE Federal Research community with dedicated perspectives STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums), the program was the following: Bart Hanssens presented the mission and function of the data.gov.be infrastructure, the federal open data portal. Istvan Gyimes presented the SODHA open data repository as the Belgian CESSDA Node, with a focus on the broader benefits of sharing data and code for research In the GLAM Track, Edwin De Roock presented the ongoing update of BALaT into BALaT+, with a focus on updating the data model to best reflect the reality of the infrastructure on which it is built. Then, Thuy-An Pham and Christina Vandedyck presented the Data-KBR project with a preview of the platform to browse KBR’s collections as data. In the STEM track, Pierre Billot provided an overview of the BIRA-IASB Open Data Repository, as well as its technical choices and adoption challenges. Then, Laure Lefevre presented the story of the SILSO ORB-KBS Sunspot Index, spanning data from four centuries, and its CoreTrustSeal certification process.