On 8-10 September 2026, colleagues from across UKCEH will contribute a series of talks and posters at the NERC Digital Gathering 2026, hosted by the University of Stirling.
The Digital Gathering brings together the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) research community to explore the growing role of digital technologies and innovation in environmental science. This year's programme focuses on four key themes:
- Innovations in Monitoring and Next-Generation Sensing
- Data Science Tools and Techniques
- Enhancing Data Services and Developing Careers
- Pioneering Computational Science
UKCEH's contributions to the 2026 gathering demonstrate how collaboration across UKCEH, the NERC Environmental Data Service and wider NERC community, and external partners, is helping to shape a more integrated Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) ecosystem. This includes work in areas such as co-design, AI-powered discovery tools, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) management of digital objects, cloud-native platforms and environmental monitoring. Together, these activities support the ambition towards a ‘One DRI’ approach – a more connected, integrated and user-centred digital ecosystem that enables the discovery, access, analysis and reuse of data, tools and services across the environmental research lifecycle.
UKCEH is working towards this One DRI ambition across a variety of projects and programmes, where the community can get involved to co-design this digital ecosystem. Programmes and opportunities to get involved include:
- the National Capability Data programme, supporting innovation and delivery of the Environmental Information Data Centre for nationally-important environmental datasets (sign up to the NERC EDS mailing list);
- the National Capability for UK Challenges programme, enhancing discoverability and accessibility to data and tools across land, air and freshwater environments (join the NC-UK community here), and
- the Flood and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI), developing a digital platform with the hydrology community (sign up to the FDRI Digital Platform Demo + Q&A here to find out more).
Talks
Co-designing DRI interfaces to support discovery, access and (re)use - Kirsty Blair
Serka, An AI-enhanced discovery tool - Faiza Samreen on behalf of Matthew Coole
Transforming Data Management Planning with FAIR Wizard: Impacts and Future Developments - Matthew Nichols
- Find out more about FAIR Wizard use in EDS
A new digital infrastructure for hydrological research: the launch of the FDRI Digital Platform - Matt Fry
- Find out more about Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI)
Toward an AI Co-Scientist for Environmental Data: Cloud Innovation, Community Building, and the Future (joint presentation with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the British Geological Survey (BGS) and UKCEH) - presented by Matt Harrison (AWS), with contributions from Patrick Bell (BGS, EDS), Gordon Blair (UKCEH), Faiza Samreen (UKCEH), Jennifer Roebuck (UKCEH), James Grant (AWS) and Paul Murphy (AWS)
Posters
Actively Codesigning Digital Infrastructure for Sharing Methods in Environmental Data Science - Jeremy Daniel Carter
- Find out more about Environmental Data Science Toolbox
Become a data wizard with the EDS - Alice Fremand, Jasmine Hunter, Charlotte Miskin-Hymas, Alison Pamment, Petra ten Hoopen, Rachel Talbot and Roseanna Wright (NERC EDS Training Working Group)
- Watch the Introduction to RDM webinar here
- Read about the impact of FAIR wizard NERC EDS here
- Find recommended online training via Training | NERC Environmental Data Service
Semi-automatic decomposition of environmental observed properties using NLP and the I-ADOPT Framework – Helen Rawsthorne on behalf of Omar Elaktash
- Find out more about I-ADOPT
Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI)
FDRI: Enabling easy access to large gridded datasets - Matt Dalle Piagge
FDRI: Towards Integrated Environmental Monitoring using Scalable Cloud-Native Digital Infrastructure - Faiza Samreen and Mike Brown
FDRI: A cloud native infrastructure for near real time hydrological monitoring - Jonathan Cooper
Integrating Semantic Models and Automated Metadata Enrichment to Advance Environmental Data Interoperability within FDRI - Helen Rawsthorne
From Requirements to Release: AI-Assisted UI Development for FDRI Monitoring Dashboards - Evgeniya Vetchinkina
- Find out more about Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI)