DIRDI’s third annual Impact & Invention Conference took place on 26th of March 2026 in the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics (West), Durham University. The theme of the conference was Artificial Intelligence and its impact across UK Science and Academia.
We welcomed delegates from an assortment of organisations and disciplines, including 13 universities and five government research laboratories and departments. The breadth of expertise across the speakers, panel participants, and guests led discussions ranging from trustworthy AI and measurement science to the economic behaviour of AI agents and the human realities of AI adoption.
The conference marks an important step in deepening DIRDI’s role within the AI research and innovation ecosystem. There is clearly a great deal of work ahead and many opportunities for collaboration across academia, government, and industry.
Keynote Address – Autocomplete and the Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Matt has significant experience helping organisations adopt, scale, manage and secure AI and cloud technology to drive innovation and efficiency. He is an expert in technology, data and AI platforms in public and private sector organisations with 19 years of UK technology and telecoms experience.
Naturally then, Matt spoke about the Ecclesiastical history of England. His central argument was about the fact that the division and redistribution of labour between man and machine will be the story of the next decade and is being written right now.
Without spoiling the keynote further – watch it here.
Conference Presentations – Sovereign AI, Information Aggregation, and AI assurance in critical sectors
We are most grateful to our speakers for their presentations at the conference, all of which can be watched on our YouTube Channel.
Professor Spyros Galanis spoke about Information Aggregation with AI Agents and discussing the question “Can Large Language Models (AI agents) aggregate dispersed private information through trading and reason about the knowledge of others by observing price movements?”.
Spyros Galanis is a Professor of Economics at the Durham University Business School and Director of Research at the Department of Economics. His research interests include decision theory, game theory, experiments, and finance. His main research focuses on the role that uncertainty, information and bounded perception have on single- and multi-agent decision making.
Dr Lindley Lentati made a compelling case for sovereign AI as a national security requirement, drawing on some striking historical parallels with drawing on the historical parallel of the McMahon Act, which saw the US unilaterally cut Britain off from nuclear technology it had helped develop, and only restore cooperation once Britain demonstrated independent capability.
Lindley Lentati is co-founder and Director of Cambridge Inference Limited, a UK technology company building AI control and monitoring infrastructure for regulated industries. His work focuses on the gap between theoretical AI safety research and production deployment, particularly the challenge of maintaining meaningful human oversight as AI systems become more capable and autonomous.
Last but not least, Professor Chris Barnes gave an overview of how measurement science is being applied to build trustworthy, deployable AI, which was particularly thought-provoking for anyone thinking about AI assurance in critical sectors.
Chris Barnes is Head of Science for AI at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), where he leads strategic research into trustworthy AI, AI for science and AI assurance. His work supports the development of reliable, transparent, and fit-for-purpose AI systems, particularly in critical sectors such as healthcare and manufacturing.
Panel Discussion – AI, The Science, and National Security
Our panel was populated by:
- Dr Stefan Sarkadi, Associate Professor in AI for Defence and Security and Royal Academy of Engineering UK Intelligence Community Research Fellow at the University of Lincoln.
- Ms Joanna Wake, AI Strategy & Skills consultant and UK Brand Ambassador for She AI, a UN-certified AI education platform that democratises AI learning globally.
- Dr David Watson is a Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London’s Department of Informatics.
- Professor Mariann (Maz) Hardey is a Professor of Business and Computing at Durham University and a leading authority on digital culture and the “Digital Human.”
The panel engaged in a wide-ranging discussion touching on topics ranging from the national security risks of AI and automating the average to the reality of AI on the ground right now, and the theory of the mind.
