When the British Science Festival came to Southampton in September, postgraduate researchers from the UKRI MINDS Centre for Doctoral Training and the SustAI CDT took the chance to put developing AI research directly in front of the public. Visitors could talk with robots, hear a river describe its own health, test their memory and control music with hand gestures. A new overview film captures those encounters, with the researchers explaining their work and why it could matter beyond the University.
The Festival was hosted by the University of Southampton from 16 to 20 September 2026. The University describes it as one of the UK’s longest-running and most prestigious public science events. This year’s programme included more than 80 free events, with talks, workshops, performances and installations at venues across the city. For the University, it was an opportunity to connect research with public audiences and to explore what research means to society and to people’s everyday lives. The main MINDS and SustAI activity took place on 19 September.
Why public audiences matter to research
Sharing developing research with different audiences gives postgraduate researchers the chance to test their ideas and hear new perspectives. It also helps them consider how their work could create real-world benefit.
Professor Stuart Middleton, who provides programme-level context in the film, sets out what MINDS hoped to achieve: “Our aim is to show some of the many innovations that our researchers are developing within AI that ultimately are going to improve lives and have a real world significance.”
MINDS postgraduate researcher Yaseen Mohammed Osman describes what researchers can learn from those exchanges: “And that’s really useful because involving the public also informs us whether what we’re doing is actually needed or not, and how can we adjust our trajectory basically.”
Four routes into AI research
The film brings together four interactive demonstrations. Each one gives visitors a familiar starting point, such as a conversation, a local river, a game or a piece of music, and leads from there to a research question.
Talking Robots explores how robots can hold conversations with people. It also looks at how a robot’s personality, responses and movements can shape the interaction. Visitors could take part in the conversation themselves, so they became part of the question the research is asking.
Talking Itchen, a joint MINDS and SustAI activity, uses sensors to measure the health of the River Itchen. AI then gives the river a voice. Complex environmental data becomes something people can listen to and question, and the approach is designed to work for younger audiences as well as adults.
Connect the Concept used a memory game, alongside an explanation, to show how the brain forms connections between concepts and builds them into larger representations such as thoughts and memories. The film links this work to potential low-energy computing applications. These include medical imaging, data storage and reducing the energy demands associated with computing.
DJ Air is a computer-human interaction system in which hand gestures control a DJ console. The film also discusses how the underlying ideas could have wider uses, including robotic or remote surgery and sign-language-related technology, with the potential to reduce accessibility barriers.
The four projects cover different areas of research. Talking Robots looks at conversations between people and robots, and Talking Itchen at environmental monitoring. Connect the Concept looks at how the brain forms connections, and DJ Air at gesture-based interaction. Each was presented as an interactive demonstration at the Festival.
The film
The overview film was commissioned to create a lasting record of the MINDS and SustAI presence at a national science festival. It was also intended to explain, in the researchers’ own words, what they do and why their work matters outside academia. The footage is designed for the postgraduate researchers to use as professional material for their own profiles.
Stuart Middleton was recorded separately to explain what MINDS is, why taking part in the British Science Festival matters and what the research represents more broadly. During planning, he asked that the MINDS postgraduate researchers remain prominent, since the film’s purpose was to promote them and their work.
The film features Tommy Tham, MINDS CDT Enterprise Fellow, and MINDS postgraduate researchers Xander Lowe and Yaseen Mohammed Osman. It also features SustAI postgraduate researchers Angelina Spilnyk, Andrei Șontea and Theo Parpounas. Viewers can see the demonstrations in use, hear the researchers explain their work to visitors and watch how members of the public responded.
Watch “UKRI MINDS CDT at the British Science Festival 2026 | AI Research in Action” to see the postgraduate researchers and their demonstrations at the Festival. You can also find out more about their research and the UKRI MINDS Centre for Doctoral Training.