Dear all,

foundingGIDE has officially reached its two-year milestone, and what a journey it has been. Over the past two years, the project has grown into a truly international and collaborative effort, advancing interoperability for biological and preclinical imaging. In this newsletter, we take a moment to look back and share an overview of the many exciting upcoming activities.

We recently concluded the foundingGIDE Community Event 2025 in Brisbane, Australia, where participants from over 22 countries came together for 1.5 days of inspiring discussions, exchange, and collaboration. The energy and diversity of the community made this event a true highlight of the project.

As we look ahead, we are now preparing the final community event of the foundingGIDE project, which will take place 4–6 May in Heidelberg, Germany (Hybrid). This will be followed by a two-day in-person hackathon on 7-8 May, alongside several parallel workshops, including one focused on the Australian Imaging Services and another on Euro-BioImaging Image Data Analysis Services. We are excited to bring the community together once more to reflect, collaborate, and shape what comes next.

We’re excited to let you know that registrations are open for the foundingGIDE Community Event 2026, taking place in Heidelberg, Germany on 4-6 May. Join us for 2.5 days of collaboration and engagement with the global imaging data community. On the evening of 4th of May, we will host a poster session, and we warmly invite our community to showcase their efforts on standardizing biological and preclinical image datasets.

Following the community event, several workshops will also be available in parallel to a hackathon on 7-8 May.

The in-person registration deadline for all three events is 10th of April.

Since its launch, foundingGIDE has grown into a vibrant, international effort to advance interoperability for biological and preclinical imaging. In this article, we look back at the many exciting milestones that have shaped the project over the past two years.

Image Data Community Days 2026
13-17 April 2026
Location: Virtual

Get ready for 5 online days packed with lectures, hands-on workshops and networking sessions centered around image data. Everyone, students, facility staff, researchers, or data enthusiasts, can look forward to a week focused on image data analysis, preclinical and medical image data, workflows, FAIR data, file formats, and community initiatives. 

Find out more here.

Open Microscopy Community Meeting
28-30 April 2026
Location: Düsseldorf, Germany

Join the 19th Open Microscopy Environment (OME) Community Meeting from 28-30.4.2026, in the Haus der Universität Düsseldorf.

Find out more here.

We hope to see you in Heidelberg or online as we continue building a more FAIR, open, and collaborative data ecosystem.

Stay in touch by following foundingGIDE on BlueSky and LinkedIn and follow our developments on GitHub.