Connect agenda (8 to 10 October)

This year, 13th Plenary will begin with two days of keynote talks and presentations, followed by three days of working meetings. Below, you will find the schedule for the Connect portion of the meeting.

6 to 7 October 2025 • 13th Plenary meeting: The global genomics community comes together to learn about and discuss challenges and opportunities in data sharing and interoperability. Go to the Plenary schedule >

8 to 10 October 2025 • Connect working sessions: GA4GH active contributors work to advance standards and policy frameworks for genomic and health data sharing. 

8:30 AM - 9:00 AM
Registration and Coffee
Break
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Connect Welcome and GA4GH updates
Plenary
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Morning Break
Break
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
The Future is FAIR beyond genomics: building bridges to the Research Data Alliance (RDA) and other FAIR research data initiatives
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
From global standards to local implementation: applying REWS’ Model Consent Clauses in African research settings
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
DUO Diligence: spring cleaning and roadmapping
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Lunch
Break
2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Discovery Work Stream in 2026
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
GIF TRE Open Suite: towards GA4GH-compliant secure and privacy-preserving computations
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Afternoon Break
Break
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Agentic Science: Enabling AI Agents to Reason with Biomedical Data via GA4GH Standards
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
Bridging location and phenotype
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
8:30 AM - 9:00 AM
Registration and Coffee
Break
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
GA4GH in the real world
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
Literature derived variant evidence: toward GA4GH compatible representation
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
Influencing EPR and LIMS suppliers to adopt FHIR standards and native interoperability (part 1)
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Morning Break
Break
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Capturing cancer genomics data attributes in Beacon v2.0
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
Variant Representation alignment: bridging VRS, VCF, HGVS, and SPDI
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
FAIR in action using GA4GH products: hands-on FAIRification from a fresh start to the FAIRest of them all
Whiteboard session: brainstorming activity using interactive tools
Influencing EPR and LIMS suppliers to adopt FHIR standards and native interoperability (part 2)
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Lunch
Break
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Leveraging GA4GH’s Tools & Standards to Balance Pathogen Data Sovereignty with Open Access
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
Where is global? Geolocation in genomics
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
Passports that scale: lightweight tokens and federated trust
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Afternoon Break
Break
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
An analytics dashboard for everything GA4GH
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
Scaling the Federated Variant-Level Matching Network
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
Next steps on the use of Verifiable Credentials (models and protocols) for improving Passports
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
8:30 AM - 9:00 AM
Registration and Coffee
Break
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Securing Beacon Networks with Passports and trust federation
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
The next step toward clinical application of GA4GH products: a sequel! (Part 1)
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Morning Break
Break
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
The next step toward clinical application of GA4GH products: a sequel! (part 2)
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
The Cloud Work Stream road map 2026 and beyond
Whiteboard session: brainstorming activity using interactive tools
Solving Beacon queries
Unconference: an attendee-led series of discussions where any participant can initiate a topic
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Lunch
 
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
In the (GIF) Spotlight: highlighting GA4GH implementations
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
Shaping the future of the GA4GH Cancer Community of Interest
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
Generating guidelines for community-driven portals for infectious disease research
Group Discussion: particular topic to gather feedback, perspectives, or ideas
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Afternoon Break
Break
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Shaping the future of the GA4GH Rare Disease Community of Interest
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
Path to normative: implementing a GA4GH maturity model
Working session: collaborative work toward a specific goal or consensus
Time Zone: (UTC+02:00) Stockholm [Change Time Zone]