Report on the Arches Governance Meeting in Los Angeles – November 2025

Over November 18-20, 2025, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) hosted an in-person meeting of Arches Project Governance Members at the Getty in Los Angeles. Following the launch of Arches Governance in early 2025 and virtual meetings of the three governance committees (Project Steering, Technical Advisory, and Community Advisory), this event provided the first opportunity for representatives of Governance Members to convene in-person and as one group. The meeting was attended by 21 committee representatives of 13 Arches Governance Member organizations, with additional Governance Member institutions represented during hybrid committee meetings. This group of international attendees invested in traveling to Los Angeles, demonstrating both the international reach of Arches and the depth of commitment to its future. It was a defining moment for Arches governance, fostering vibrant conversations that made evident the collaborative spirit and dedication to the project shared by all participants.  

The meetings were characterized by openness, collaboration, and a shared sense of responsibility. Participants discussed not only the technical and organizational challenges ahead, but also their role in representing those in the broader Arches community who were not present in the room, including implementers, users, and developers. 

Participants engaged in productive discussions about issues important to the international Arches community. The event provided a valuable opportunity for a range of Arches stakeholders to share perspectives, and to discuss their role in representing all sectors of the Arches community. Important meeting outcomes included agreement on ways to further formalize ways for governance committees to undertake work, and consensus on important Arches priorities to advance in 2026 and beyond.

What follows are goals for 2026 and beyond that were identified by governance representatives during the in-person meeting:

Goals Identified by Governance Representatives

Governance Process Updates
Understanding, Addressing, and Expanding Arches Audience
Community Experience
Documentation & Resources
Software Development & Features
Topics Chosen to Move Forward On

Governance Process Updates

1. Committee Roles and Relationships 
   • Further define processes of and between governance committees
   • Reconsider roles of chairs/vice-chairs, and secretary/moderator to enable non-GCI representatives to provide leadership 
   • Create communication workflow between separate committees
   • Create process for committees to develop and approve proposals 
     • Create cross-committee working groups for specific topics
2. Logistics
   • Confirmed frequency of meetings
     • Per committee: continue every two months
     • Cross-committee: explore regular attendance of at least some representatives of Technical and Community committees at each other’s meetings 
     • Plenary gatherings: goal of meeting twice per year (could be virtual, and in-person once every one or two years, with idea of attaching in-person to other Arches community gatherings such as annual developer meeting to leverage travel investments)
   • Clarify participation of individual representatives vs. member organizations (i.e., participation is through representing governance member organizations) 
   • Clarify expectations of governance representatives (time and resource commitment) to inform current and potential representatives 
   • Confirm collaborative digital systems for committee work (e.g., Discourse forum, document collaboration, etc.)
3.  Arches Governance Charter
   • Intend to make written edits to address proposed changes once adopted (such as proposals outlined in 1-2)
4. Monitoring & Evaluation
   • Measure and assess progress of advancing governance priorities

Understanding, Addressing, and Expanding Arches Audience

5. Communications & Dissemination
6. • Develop Arches messaging toolkit
     • Idea of product sheets per Arches application
   • Understand stakeholders and audiences 
     • Seek a clear definition of target stakeholder and audience profiles
       • Survey to define stakeholder and audience profiles and needs
     • Consider active expansion of Arches community to additional domains (e.g., heritage science, vocabularies, external to heritage)

Community Experience

6. Software Developer Support
   • Improve developer onboarding
     • Tidy Arches Project GitHub repos, clarify ownership, and improve contributor guidance
   • Establish metrics for tracking progress (forum trends, GitHub activity)
7. Extend Engagement
   • Plan 2027 Arches “Conference” – combine developer and implementer / user, with possibility of plenary governance in-person meeting 
   • Cultivate additional Arches interest and community groups
8. Improve Recognition of Contributions 
   • Via roadmap, forum, bulletin, social media, etc.

Documentation & Resources

9. Software Developer Support
   • Improve domain-specific documentation 
   • Create and improve less technical guides (potentially through a Doc-a-thon event)
     • Visual guides
     • Improved contribution and implementation guidelines
   • Define community standards (security, testing)

Software Development & Features

10. Development Process & Roadmap Improvements
    • Define process for submitting and considering development proposals
    • Implement roadmap tool with upvoting and prioritization for community, as well as indicating desired features for which funding is sought, and acknowledging contributions
    • Define process for updating roadmap and archiving feature requests not adopted.
11.  Approach to Development
    • Proposed shift toward platform modularization and away from monolithic platform, in part due to advantages with respect to software testing, maintenance, and developer familiarization 
      • Impact of these plans on Arches v8.2 LTS Release, scheduled for Sept 2026, which will be the core Arches version to receive sustained support into 2029.

Topics Chosen to Move Forward On

10. Draft Arches AI statement, to articulate an Arches Project position on the application of AI with respect to Arches 
11. Launch online Arches registry, to enable community self-reporting of Arches activity (e.g., implementations, service provision)
12. Accessibility Proposal 
    • Formalize standards (WCAG), auditing process, and developer guidelines.
    • Consider funding an agency for accessibility audits across Arches applications.
13. Prioritize determining components of long-term support (LTS) 2026 software release