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Hello VIVO Community,
As autumn progresses, it’s a great moment to reflect on the progress we’ve made together. The past few months have been full of activity — from governance meetings and strategic
discussions to the publication of the 2025 Annual Report, preparations for the
VIVO 1.16 release, and welcoming AT-CRIS to our Service Provider Program.
Your engagement and collaboration continue to shape VIVO’s evolution. Thank you for being part of this open, global community working to make research information more connected
and discoverable!
If you would like to receive this newsletter directly and are not yet subscribed, please
subscribe.
(If you subscribe, Lyrasis will only send emails pertaining to the VIVO Community Newsletter.)
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Community News
2025 VIVO Annual Report Published
On September 30, VIVO released the
2025
Annual Report, summarizing a year of milestones, collaborations, and technical progress. We invite everyone to explore the full report and celebrate the shared
accomplishments of the VIVO community.
VIVO at the Expert Finder Systems Forum
VIVO participated in the
Expert
Finder Systems (EFS) Forum, held virtually September 16–18.
As a sponsor, VIVO hosted a virtual table and delivered a presentation highlighting its
ontology and
open-source ecosystem. The event fostered meaningful exchanges with universities and research organizations using or exploring VIVO.
7th VIVO Workshop 2025 (Germany)
The VIVO Workshop 2025 held in September at TIB attracted 35 participants over two days.
The program started with an overview of the upcoming release 1.16 and a presentation on the Lyrasis Organizational Home, the role of community, and benefits of membership in
VIVO. It continued with a variety of reports from VIVO adopters on their use cases, including a
very
small research institute,
middle-sized
universities, a
large
scientific organization and a
health-oriented
non-profit.
Breakout-sessions covered questions such as “What do you need in VIVO?”, “How can we collaborate on the Ontology?”, “Which RIS topics are you dealing with most currently?” and
“For which classification and entity types would you like to have automatic classification?”
The second day of the program included hands-on sessions such as “VIVO for newbies” and “Reporting with VIVO” and a “meta” session on the topics of PIDs, open research information
and the German standard Research Core Dataset. The last half day was then dedicated to presentations on improved visualizations, narrative CVs (by Leadership Group member Jose Salm), representation of scientific instruments, the VIVO ontology, the roadmap
(by Brian Lowe), containerization and attribute access control.
Some of the slides are already published
in
the Zenodo community VIVO-DE. Others will be added as they are received.
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Leadership Group Elections
We are excited to start the new Governance year and to welcome several new members to the
VIVO
Leadership Group. Sonja Schulze (Universität Onsnabruck, Bronze Member), Ethel Mejia (Texas A&M, Community representative) and Andrea Mora Campos (Universidad
Nacional de Costa Rica, Community representative) have joined the Leadership group this year. VIVO also wants to thank Terrie Wheeler (Weill Cornell) for her many years of dedicated service on the Leadership group as she steps off.
The new Leadership group has also now elected their officers for the coming year:
Chair: Brian Lowe (Ontocale)
Vice-Chair:
Christian Hauschke (TIB)
Treasurer: Bryan Cooper (FIU)
Thanks and congratulations to all!
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Welcome to Our New Registered Service Provider — AT-CRIS
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We are delighted to welcome
AT-CRIS as
the newest member of the VIVO
Registered Service Provider Program.
The Service Provider Program aims to strengthen the ecosystem around VIVO and other open technologies by:
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Expanding adoption – connecting open-source service providers with organizations exploring research information management solutions.
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Celebrating expertise – recognizing providers’ in-kind and technical contributions that enhance VIVO’s quality and functionality.
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Offering mentorship – supporting providers who wish to contribute to open-source communities.
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Ensuring sustainability – generating funding that supports code management, releases, bug fixes and community leadership roles.
With AT-CRIS now part of the program, VIVO looks forward to deeper collaboration and expanded support for adopters worldwide.
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Governance Updates
The August meeting covered a range of strategic, technical and operational updates:
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Software Development & MVP Interest – Eight expressions of interest for MVP development were received from India, the US, Ecuador, Canada, Serbia and Hungary. A process for execution and selection was discussed and will be voted on by email.
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ORCID Grant – Tatiana Walther began mapping work for the ORCID–VIVO integration, a key step before data delivery.
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Financials – End-of-year income and expenses were both below projections; an updated projection will be presented next meeting.
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VIVO SaaS Model – A draft cost analysis for hosting was discussed, based on server and personnel costs, with further refinements to come.
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Governance Motions – Leadership board membership for Bronze members in good standing extended by one year (unanimous vote).
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Wiki Cleanup – Ongoing; substantial archival work in progress.
The September meeting continued discussions on releases, governance and community engagement:
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VIVO 1.16 Release – Remaining pull requests are being finalized, with the release candidate expected soon.
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ORCID–VIVO Integration – Mapping work complete; software implementation next.
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MVP Funded Development – Contracts close to completion; implementation through March 2026, review by June 2026.
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Membership & Finances – Dues remain ~$20K below projections, but higher interest income balances the outlook. Hosting and service models under review.
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Organizational Home Agreement – A new fee model combining multiple services into one, slightly lower, structure under discussion.
The October meeting was focused on updates from the development team and from important initiatives at Lyrasis, the Organizational Home:
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VIVO 1.16 Release – release candidate should be available soon.
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ORCID-VIVO Integration – moving on with implementation of the mapping.
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MVP Funded Development – 80% of the team in place, will get started with Accessibility and OAI-PMH implementations. The
GitHub
project board
will be used to track the work.
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CST Interoperability Project – Jess Farrell of Redstart Consulting introduced the goals and approach to the
CST
Interoperability project and asked the members of the group for how she should best engage with the community.
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Organizational Home Cost Model – the details of the new cost model were shared and VIVO Leadership will be reviewing and voting on it in November.
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Looking Ahead
Next Leadership Group Meeting – November 26, 2025
VIVO 1.16 Release – Coming soon; stay tuned for the official announcement.
CST Interoperability Project – Stay tuned for ways to engage with this effort and provide ideas for application and workflow integrations for VIVO.
Collaborations & Partnerships – Continued outreach with service providers, institutions, and global partners.
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Thank You
The VIVO project thrives through its vibrant community — contributors, adopters, developers, and advocates alike. Thank you for your continued participation and support.
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Registry
Is your VIVO instance listed in the registry? Help us maintain reliable
information on the community of VIVO users around the world by
registering
your
repository today.
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Stay Connected
Your ideas and participation are key to VIVO's momentum!
To learn more, connect with us on
vivoweb.org,
follow us on Mastodon at @ne...@vivoweb.org or
join the conversation on Slack.
Thank you for your continued engagement and remember, the more we are, the better:
Join
the Community, any contribution counts!
GO VIVO!
— The VIVO Team
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