Exeter hosts Summit on Environmental Intelligence

Exeter hosted the inaugural Summit on Environmental Intelligence at the Streatham Campus, on Wednesday May 22 2019.

The increasing availability of large and complex data sets from diverse sources presents an exceptional opportunity to transform our understanding of the effects of environmental change.

The seminal summit provided delegates with the opportunity to explore new ways in which we may be able to respond to complex interactions between the environment, and human health and social/economic systems, by using the burgeoning amount of data and information sets now available.

These discussions can, ultimately, pave the way for the development of new tools to enable informed decision-making and support behaviour change by empowering individuals, organisations and businesses through the provision of personalized information.

The summit was led by key representatives from Exeter’s Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IDSAI), the Global Systems Institute (GSI), and the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI).

Among the delegates were representatives from the Met Office, the Environment Agency, Google Deepmind, IBM and ARUP, as well as universities from across the UK, Canada, China and Italy.

Professor Gavin Shaddick, deputy director of IDSAI at the University of Exeter said: “Environmental Intelligence is an emerging research area of strategic global importance and the Summit provided us with an opportunity to discuss opportunities and challenges, and to identify priority areas for development that will result in meaningful and lasting impact.”

Professor Sir Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Exeter added: “Like all global challenges, addressing the impact of environmental and climate change requires a truly interdisciplinary approach in order that we can find solutions that result in meaningful progress.”

The event was sponsored by the Alan Turing Institute.