Official announcement: Transition from Training Data Lab to live archive

Since its creation in 2020, Training Data Lab has served as a meeting point for researchers at different stages of their careers interested in applied social sciences and quantitative methods. In these five years, we have promoted different collaborations and projects such as, for example, the Ranking Chileno de Ciencia Política (CPS-Ranking). We also launched the series of working papers Tufte Working Papers (ISSN 2735-6043).

During 2024, we tried various revitalisation strategies, however, collective participation steadily declined. After consulting with our active researchers and assessing the available volunteer effort, we concluded that the most responsible path is to move to a living archive mode from August 2025. This decision seeks to preserve the legacy of the research group without giving the image of a half-empty space or overburdening a small core group with tasks that no longer have institutional or community support.

Transition to live archive involves freezing the site and keeping minimal information. Our domain will remain active. For any enquiries about the research project, we will keep the contact@training-datalab.com mailbox operational until December 2026. The initiative that will remain active will be our working paper series. We will continue to receive manuscripts in Spanish or English via working-papers@training-datalab.com, each with an open review process, DOI assignment and simultaneous publication in repositories such as SocArXiv and Zenodo. Our already published papers will continue to be available in open access, with their full metadata and PDF versions produced in LaTeX.

On the other hand, activities that require intensive coordination will be suspended: the organisation of workshops and the publication of news on the website and social media. Any new institutional collaboration will only be considered if an external entity provides explicit resources and commitment to assume it on an ongoing basis.

Our initial purpose related to fostering rigorous research and disseminating technical knowledge to broader audiences remains intact, but the career paths of most researchers in the group have reduced the capacity to sustain a dedicated calendar of events and communication. Concentrating energy on the working paper series maximises the scholarly impact of each individual contribution and ensures the preservation of the knowledge generated to date.

Agradecemos profundamente a todas las personas que participaron, revisaron, difundieron o citaron nuestro trabajo. Las decenas de miles de descargas, las colaboraciones interdisciplinarias y la comunidad diversa que se formó alrededor del grupo son logros compartidos. Confiamos en que este “archivo vivo” sirva de base para nuevas iniciativas y que nuestros documentos de trabajo continúen siendo una ventana abierta a la investigación innovadora y de acceso libre. Hasta pronto.

We are deeply grateful to everyone who participated, reviewed, disseminated or cited our work. The tens of thousands of downloads, the interdisciplinary collaborations, and the diverse community that formed around the group are shared achievements. We trust that this living archive will serve as a basis for new initiatives and that our working papers will continue to be a window to innovative and open-access research. Farewell.