The 41st ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing
Data Spaces and Trusted Data Sharing (DSTDS) Track

Updates

July 11, 2025: SAC 2026 DSTDS Track website is open.

The Symposium

The ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) has been a primary and international forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineers and application developers to gather, interact and present their work. The ACM Special Interest Group on Applied Computing (SIGAPP) is the sole sponsor of SAC. The conference proceedings are published by ACM and are also available online through ACM's Digital Library. 

The Data Spaces and Trusted Data Sharing (DSTDS) Track

 A »Data Space« is a virtual infrastructure using standards and common governance models to facilitate the secure exchange and easy linkage of data in business ecosystems. It thereby provides a basis for the creation and use of smart services and innovative business processes, while at the same time ensuring digital sovereignty of data providers. In recent years, the concept of data spaces has gained increasing interest at a global level and a number of developments and challenges have been highlighted. Data spaces are expected to advance the state of the art in data sharing and monetization by providing a secure and trusted environment. 

The amount of data is constantly growing and managing it will become increasingly important for organizations. In fact, the biggest new opportunities in the data economy are related to cooperation and data transfer between companies and organizations. In order to preserve the value of data and to enable trusted data sharing between different organizations, it is essential to establish a reliable method, along with the technical and software infrastructure for data sharing. To create such a data space, key requirements such as data sovereignty, decentral data management, data economy, value creation, easy data linkage, trust, secure data supply chain and data governance need to be considered and applied simultaneously. A variety of architectures, methodologies and technologies are currently being explored and developed to build such ecosystems around common principles and standards. 

With this track in the context of ACM SAC, we aim to establish an environment where researchers from industry and academia can discuss and explore the concepts and technical solutions for establishing data spaces and ensuring trusted data sharing. We successfully launched this track at ACM SAC 2025, where we organized a session comprising four full papers. 

Topics of Interest

The topics of interest include but not limited to the following:

1. Reference architectures for Data Spaces.

2. Building blocks of Data Spaces.

3. Trusted Data Spaces.

4. Examples of successful implementation of Data Spaces.

5. Data Sovereignty and Data Provenance in Data Spaces.

6. Artificial intelligence for Data Spaces.

7. Secure data transmission and relevant technologies.

8. Data governance in Data Spaces

9. Privacy preserving mechanisms for Data Spaces

10. Data modeling and data governance models in Data Spaces

11. Metadata management and broker service for Data Spaces.

12. AI technologies for data sharing.

13. Interoperability for Data Spaces.

14. Ensuring data quality in Data Spaces.

15. Compliance in Data Spaces

SAC No-Show Policy

Paper registration is mandatory to include papers and posters in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST present the paper. This requirement applies to all accepted papers, posters, and invited SRC submissions for inclusion in the ACM digital library. In case of personal circumstances preventing physical attendance, online presentation is allowed, ensuring the paper's inclusion in the ACM digital library.

Track chairs

👤  Amir Shayan Ahmadian, University of Koblenz, Germany

👤 Sven Peldszus, Ruhr University Bochum

👤  Jan Jürjens, Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST (Dortmund) & University of Koblenz, Germany

For more information about the track, please contact Amir Shayan Ahmadian (ahmadian(at)uni-koblenz.de) or Sven Peldszus (sven.peldszus(at)rub.de).

Program committee

Jan Pennekamp, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Markus Krausz, TÜV IT, Germany

Xiang Ma, SINTEF, Norway

Christos Gizelis, HELLENIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS ORGANIZATION S.A. - OTE AE, Greece

Alessandra Bagnato, Softeam, France

Gerd Brost, Fraunhofer, Germany

Christopher Gerking, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Sandra Geisler, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Yuri Demchenko, University of Amstredam, Netherlands

Qusai Ramadan, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Raul Pardo, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Katja Tuma, Eindhoven University of Technology

László Gönczy, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary

Important dates

• September 26, 2025        Submission of Regular papers

• October 31, 2025             Notification of paper acceptance/rejection

Submissions

• The submission guidelines are announced on the ACM SAC webpage.

• Important update on ACMs new open access publishing model for 2026 ACM Conferences!
  Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70-75%). Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM. Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:

•    $250 APC for ACM/SIG members

•    $350 for non-members

This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period.This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.