BOSC 2026 is planned for July 14-15, 2026, as part of ISMB 2026 in Washington, DC.
We invite our community to nominate potential keynote speakers who would be of interest to our community. You may submit as many nominations as you wish. The form may be filled out multiple times. Please submit nominations by December 15, 2025.
Why this matters
Keynote talks are always a highlight at BOSC. We traditionally open and close the conference with invited speakers—prominent contributors or emerging leaders whose work resonates with the bioinformatics open-source community.
About the selection process
Prior to 2023, keynote selection was handled internally by the BOSC Organizing Committee. In 2023, we introduced a more consistent, transparent, and community-aligned process, including a public rubric for evaluating candidates. The results were excellent, and we are continuing this open nomination process for 2026. (See our selection rubric: https://github.com/OBF/bosc_materials/blob/master/invited-speaker-process.md)
Key Dates
- December 15, 2025 – Deadline for keynote speaker nominations
- December 19, 2025 – Nomination slate posted for community review
- January 9, 2026 – Deadline for community comments on the slate