The Web Science Trust (WST) is a charitable body with the aim of supporting the global development of Web Science through a network of world class laboratories known as WSTNet. It is hosted by the University of Southampton.The origins of the Web Science Trust can be found in the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) which was established in 2006 and now in 2017 we have assembled 19 world-class international research groups and a series of international teaching and research events including an ACM Web Science conference.