Published: 12th February 2025
On 24 January 2025, MINDS CDT researchers gathered at the Leonardo Southampton Hotel for the programme's third annual symposium. Around 40 people attended, making it the largest symposium the CDT has held.
This year's event had a new dimension. For the first time, the symposium welcomed the first cohort of SustAI, the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for Sustainability, also based at the University of Southampton. The two CDTs share a commitment to responsible, impactful AI research, and bringing their researchers together for the first time created a genuinely cross-programme conversation about where that research is heading.
The theme for the day was responsible research and innovation. Rather than presenting their work purely in technical terms, researchers were asked to engage with the broader questions their projects raise: who is affected by this research, why does it matter, and what are its implications beyond the lab? To support this, students were asked to use the RRI 4P AREA framework, a tool from Responsible Research and Innovation that helps researchers think systematically about the purpose, process, product and people connected to their work.
Presentations covered a wide range of research directions, from neuromorphic computing and reinforcement learning to energy demand prediction and marine biodiversity. Two prizes were awarded for the best presentations, judged by programme leadership and fellow researchers.
The symposium has grown each year into something more than an internal showcase. It is a space where researchers at different stages of their PhDs can hear what their peers are working on, ask sharp questions, and think about their own research in a wider context. Adding SustAI to that mix in 2025 made it broader and more interesting still.