The sessions will take place across three rooms at the One Birdcage Walk venue:

  • Plenary and research software track sessions: Main Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor
  • Data track sessions: Manufacturing room, 1st floor
  • Infrastructure track sessions: Council room, 2nd floor

Full talks are allocated a 20-minute slot (including time for questions). Lightning talks are allocated 5 minutes.

Select a talk title to view the abstract, or view all abstracts on the abstracts page.

09:15-10:00 Arrival and registration – tea and coffee available
10:00-10:10 Conference welcome and introduction
Jeremy Cohen, Imperial College London and Ilektra Christidi, UCL
Plenary session 1 (Main Lecture Theatre)
Session chair: Ilektra Christidi
10:10-10:55 Keynote: Bringing the Virtual Human to Life
Andrea Townsend-Nicholson, UCL

Abstract: Imagine assembling a silicon twin for every person using their digital health and biological data, from the whole genome sequence to their skeletal architecture. Imagine possessing the ability to make predictions not only of disease progression and outcomes but also the therapeutic effects of treatment-options and interventions - and the means of testing the impact of different lifestyles and treatments to select the ones that give us the preferred outcome. This digital twin could be used to make informed decisions that range from the treatment of disease to improving quality of life and, ultimately, will greatly inform the design of clinical trials so that these could be faster and safer. Since 2016, I have been focused on supporting the creation and translation of patient-specific computational models into validated human digital twins to inform clinical decision making through my research in drug discovery, and my education and outreach activities. Here, I will describe “Bringing the Virtual Human to Life” – a community effort that requires bringing together a wide range of people from experts in computational biomedicine, clinicians, policymakers and the general public. I will describe the state of the art in the building of human digital twin components, and I will share several of the challenges that I have encountered along the way that have been resolved with the support of the research technology professionals with whom I have been collaborating.
10:55-11:10 UKRI dRTP Skills
Afia Masood, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UKRI
11:10-11:40 Coffee Break
11:40-13:00 Plenary session 2 (Main Lecture Theatre)
Session chair: James Graham
11:40 - 12:00 Contextualising open science training programmes (abstract, slides)
Sara Villa, Yo Yehudi and Malvika Sharan
12:00 - 12:20 Professionalising diverse data science roles (abstract, slides)
Emma Karoune and Malvika Sharan
12:20 - 12:25 Why are we creating an Open Source Programme Office at UCL? How are we doing so? (abstract)
David Pérez-Suárez, Mosè Giordano, Miguel Xochicale and Sam Cunliffe
12:25 - 12:30 DisCouRSE: Developing a Community of Leaders (abstract, slides)
Jonathan Cooper
12:30 - 12:35 CCP-AHC: A new collaborative computational community for arts, humanities, and culture research (abstract, slides)
Eamonn Bell, Karina Rodriguez and Jeyan Thiyagalingam
12:35 - 12:55 Diversity and Inclusion in Practice: What you need to know when you plan to hire International RSE and dRTPs (abstract)
Yo Yehudi, Sarah Villa, Aman Goel, Toby Hodges and Malvika Sharan
Poster lightning talks
Each poster presenter gets 2 minutes for a very brief pitch highlighting their poster as we go into the lunch break and poster session... (poster abstracts)
13:00-14:15 Lunch and posters
14:15-15:15 Parallel track talks - session 1
Research Software Track (Main Lecture Theatre)
Session chair: Maria Broadbridge
14:15 - 14:25 Track introduction
Maria Broadbridge
14:25 - 14:45 SoFAIR - Making Software FAIR: A machine-assisted workflow for the research software lifecycle (abstract)
David Pride, Petr Knoth, Matteo Cancellieri and Laurent Romary
14:45 - 15:05 AI OnDemand: Segmenting Images at Scale with Ease (abstract, slides)
Cameron Shand, Marie-Charlotte Domart, Jon Smith and Amy Strange
15:05 - 15:10 Python Profiling and Optimisation & the RPC SIG (abstract, slides)
Jost Migenda and Robert Chisholm
Research Data Track (Manufacturing, 1st floor)
Session chair: Katarina Buntic
14:15 - 14:25 Track introduction
Katarina Buntic
14:25 - 14:45 Introducing Helix: Imperial College London's New FAIR Data Repository (abstract, slides)
Christopher Cave-Ayland and Wayne Peters
14:45 - 15:05 Developing a sustainable data infrastructure for physical sciences (abstract)
Nicola Knight, Samantha Pearman-Kanza, Louise Saul and Cerys Willoughby
Research Computing Infrastructure/HPC Track (Council Room, 2nd floor)
Session chair: Gavin Yearwood
14:15 - 14:35 Building a Production-Ready Barts Health Secure Data Environment: Tooling, Access Control, and Cost Governance (abstract, slides)
Idowu Samuel Bioku, Evan Hann, Tony Wildish, Steven Newhouse, Benjamin Eaton, Ruzena Uddin and Francene Clarke-Walden
14:35 - 14:55 Harnessing the power of AIRR supercomputers for trusted research (abstract, slides)
Jim Madge, Matt Craddock and Martin O'Reilly
14:55 - 15:15 No Secrets, Just Trust: Securely Deploying Infrastructure Without Persistent Credentials (abstract)
Brian Maher
15:15-15:45 Break - refreshments and posters
15:45-16:30 Parallel track talks - session 2
Research Software Track (Main Lecture Theatre)
Session chair: Jamie Knight
15:45 - 15:50 Two more tiny Python packages for scientific computing: mpi-pytest and petsctools (abstract, slides)
Connor Ward
15:50 - 16:10 Mini-guide to reproducible Python code (abstract, slides)
Diego Alonso Álvarez
16:10 - 16:30 Towards a declarative, reproducible, homogeneous, cross-platform command-line
environment across remote HPC machines (abstract and links, slides)
Krishnakumar Gopalakrishnan
Research Data (Manufacturing, 1st floor)
Session chair: Katarina Buntic
15:45 - 16:05 CaSDaR (The Careers and Skills for Data-Driven Research) Network+: Empowering Data Stewards for Research Excellence (abstract, slides)
Samantha Pearman-Kanza, Simon Coles, James Baker, Simon Hettrick and Isobel Stark
16:05 - 16:25 Shoehorning Interoperability in Astronomical Science Data Metadata Model Mapping (abstract)
Michael Johnson and Erin Brassfield Bourke
Research Computing Infrastructure/HPC Track (Council Room, 2nd floor)
Session chair: Deepak Aggarwal
15:45 - 15:50 Developing the next generation of dRTPs (abstract)
Stephanie E.M. Thompson
15:50 - 16:10 Addressing the HPC Skills Shortage Through Learning Pathways and Visible Infrastructure (abstract)
Jeremy Cohen, Weronika Filinger, Eirini Zormpa and Michael Bearpark
16:10 - 16:30 EasyBob, the friendly software installation bot (abstract)
Jörg Saßmannshausen
16:30-17:00 Final plenary session (Main Lecture Theatre)
Session chair: Jeremy Cohen
Closing keynote: Shaping Research Culture Through Communities: Lessons from Open Science (slides)
Malvika Sharan, The Alan Turing Institute and OLS

Abstract: Ever been in a research team or community where you felt truly welcome, empowered, and excited to engage? This experience is rarely accidental. The secret sauce lies in intentional facilitation, genuine spaces for collaboration, and inclusive community management. My talk will explore lessons (the ingredients) from both a community member's and a community builder's perspective. Drawing from my experience participating in and building Open Science communities, specifically The Turing Way and Open Life Science (OLS), I will highlight key aspects and actionable strategies for engaging and supporting research communities. Attendees, whether in 'formal' or informal roles, will leave with valuable insights and familiar reminders on fostering inclusive communities, improving research culture, and preserving the inherent joy of collaboration. Ultimately, it's about investing in communities to achieve research goals that serve our society.

Closing comments