Sustaining the Map: A Five-Year SSHRC Insight Grant on OpenStreetMap

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada has awarded a five-year Insight Grant for Sustaining the Map: A Mixed-Methods Intervention for OpenStreetMap Contributor Retention, a collaboration between Dipto Sarkar of Carleton University and Robert Soden of the Toronto Climate Observatory. The project runs from 2026 to 2031.

OpenStreetMap is the largest map of the world built by volunteers, and in many places it is the most detailed map available. Humanitarian organizations, governments, and researchers depend on it, including for disaster response and climate adaptation planning. Like other peer-production communities, it also depends on people continuing to contribute, and sustaining that participation over time is a persistent challenge for the communities and organizations that rely on the map. The project combines analysis of contribution records with interviews and interventions developed with mapping communities to understand why contributors stay or leave, and to test approaches to sustaining participation.

The grant continues a line of research at the TCO on OpenStreetMap and the knowledge commons, including studies of the value tensions raised by growing corporate participation in OSM (CSCW 2024, Best Paper Honourable Mention) and of the roles that emerge among OSM editors (CHI 2024).

For the TCO, the grant will also support participatory mapping and community data projects in Toronto, beginning with a doctoral researcher working with the Toronto Hazard Reconnaissance team.