Working groups
Apply to a working group
Twenty working groups, one per dictionary domain. All seats are open for the 2026 forming round — chair, co-chair and twelve community seats per group. This form helps you compose a short application e-mail to the working-groups inbox; you press send from your own e-mail client, so nothing leaves your machine before you review it.
What to include
A good application is short and specific
Working-group applications are read by the CASRAI editorial coordinator and the appointing chair (where one is already in post). The shortlisting rubric is published — domain expertise, institutional and regional diversity, an explicit slot for early-career researchers, and a sense that the applicant has the time to be useful rather than just titled. You do not need to write a long letter. The strongest applications are three or four sentences: what you do, what you have shipped that touches this domain, what you want to work on, and how much time you can realistically give. If you are applying for chair, please add a sentence on how you would convene the group — the cadence you would set, the first three priorities you would surface, and the cross-walks to adjacent standards you would steward.
Application form
Submit your interest
This form composes an e-mail to [email protected]. It does not store anything on the CASRAI server — your details only leave your machine when you press send in your own e-mail client.
What happens next
From submission to seat
Within five working days
The CASRAI editorial coordinator acknowledges receipt and confirms which open-call window your application falls under.
At the close of the window
Applications are reviewed in a batch against the published shortlisting rubric. Where a chair is already in post, the chair joins the review.
Within four weeks of close
Decisions are returned. Successful applicants receive an onboarding pack covering the terms of reference, the editorial style guide and the current candidate-term pipeline.
Ongoing
Members are named in release notes and the editorial-meta block of any entry they author or review, alongside their CRediT role. Working-group output is released under CC-BY 4.0.
FAQ
Frequently asked
- What happens after I submit?
- Your message arrives in the [email protected] inbox. The CASRAI editorial coordinator acknowledges receipt within five working days. Applications are reviewed in batches at the close of each open-call window — typically every quarter. Decisions are returned within four weeks of the close of the window.
- Do I need an ORCID iD?
- No — ORCID is optional but recommended. It lets us attribute your working-group contribution to your researcher record in a machine-readable way, alongside any CRediT roles you take on as part of authoring an entry.
- Do I need an institutional affiliation?
- No. Working-group membership is open to independent practitioners. The qualification test is competence and time, not affiliation. Independent applicants are welcomed alongside university, publisher, repository, infrastructure and funder-based applicants.
- Can I apply to more than one working group?
- Yes — submit a separate application for each. Most active members serve on one working group at a time to keep the time commitment manageable; chair roles are normally limited to one.
- I am applying as a sponsor, not a participant.
- Use the same form and select "Observer" in the seat field, or email [email protected] directly with the subject "Sponsorship enquiry". Sponsorship and seat selection are decided separately and on different criteria.
Not ready to apply?
There are smaller ways in
A seat is one route. Public comment and term proposals are open to anyone, with no application required.
Propose a term
No application required
Anyone can propose a candidate entry. The relevant working group will route it through public review.
Comment on consultations
Public review windows
Each release cycle opens candidate entries for public comment. Named comments are credited in the editorial-meta block.
