A Year in Data Rescue
Exactly one year ago today, the Data Rescue Project was formed. While 2025 took so much from us, individually, professionally, as a nation, we will always be grateful that it brought us this community. That YOU showed up with your time and expertise, shared your knowledge and learned in return from some truly extraordinary fellow data rescuers, and engaged with our blog posts and social media. None of this would be possible without volunteers and a community as excellent as this one.
In a single year, we have rescued over 2500 datasets from over 90 government agencies. This work was supported by over 900 volunteers.
Besides the creation of the Data Rescue Project, this year we have focused on coordination, curation, and communication:
- Teamed up with the University of Minnesota and Safeguarding Research and Culture for Save Our Signs
- Developed a beloved (even if cumbersome!) spreadsheet to track and manage rapid-response data collection
- Developed and launched the Data Rescue Tracker, which grew into the Data Rescue Portal, to catalog and highlight rescued datasets from different agencies
- Partnered with Open Collective Europe Foundation, becoming a 501(c)(3)-equivalent
- Received support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to aid data rescue efforts
- Created and launched our website, along with Bluesky and Instagram accounts (give us a follow if you haven’t yet!)
- Lead 38 panels, webinars, presentations, or hackathons to over 3600 people
- And so much more that can’t be reduced to bullet points.
This work hasn’t always been easy. It certainly isn’t glamorous. But it is essential and meaningful work. So cheers to everyone here who showed up, even just once, to support the effort.
