News and Announcements

Welcome to the November edition of the DSAIL newsletter. Many thanks to everyone who joined us for Dr Eleanor Drage’s online talk, What if We Got AI Right?, which attracted 70 attendees from across the University and beyond. It was a thought-provoking discussion, and we are grateful to Eleanor for sharing her work with us.

It has been a strong month for research across the Institute. Lancaster researchers have ten papers accepted at the main conference of NeurIPS 2026, one of the leading international venues for fundamental AI research – seven from the Mathematics for AI in Real-world Systems (MARS) group and three from the Multimodal Perception and Intelligence Learning (MPIL) Lab in the School of Computing and Communications. We also congratulate Dr Henry Moss on being awarded a £2 million UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to develop the mathematical foundations of generative AI for scientific discovery. You can read more about both below.

There is plenty to note in the diary this month. Professor Claire Hardaker, our Integrity Theme Lead, speaks on Tuesday 3rd November in Fylde Lecture Theatre 1 (11:00–12:00) on trust and accountability when generative AI tools help decide who receives public funding, and Haripriya Harikumar (Centre for AI Fundamentals, University of Manchester) joins us on Wednesday 18th November at 12:00 in the Sky Lounge, InfoLab21, to talk about robust Bayesian decision making. FACTOR research also features in DUPLICATION, a digital artwork on display at the Storey Gallery as part of Light Up Lancaster from 5th to 7th November. A reminder, too, of two DSAIL deadlines: applications for the Gender Diversity in Data Science and AI Grant close on Friday 13th November, and nominations for the DSAIL Prizes 2026 close on Friday 27th November.

Elsewhere in this issue you will find a warm welcome to our new members, news and opportunities from the Turing Institute, funding calls, and details of fully funded MARS PhD studentships and the N8 CIR Summer 2027 Internship Programme. As ever, please do share your news with us at dsail@lancaster.ac.uk.

DUPLICATION: FACTOR research features at Light Up Lancaster (5–7 November)

Research from Lancaster University's FACTOR group and Nightingale Lab is helping to inspire DUPLICATION, a participatory digital artwork by NA11 featuring at Light Up Lancaster from 5–7 November. The installation explores how our faces, voices, and personal data can be captured, copied, and manipulated, drawing on research into facial recognition, synthetic media, voice replication, and deepfakes. Through projected digital portraits and fragmented voices, DUPLICATION invites audiences to reflect on authenticity, identity, the growing possibilities for recreating human likenesses, and what these developments mean. Supported by the EPSRC-funded CyberFocus project, DUPLICATION will be on display at the Storey Gallery, Lancaster, from 5–10pm each evening. Find out more about DUPLICATION and Light Up Lancaster.

Beyond Bot or Not: When AI Starts Talking Back (17 November)

Professor Claire Hardaker, DSAIL Integrity Theme Lead and Professor of Forensic Linguistics, will be speaking at Beyond Bot or Not: When AI Starts Talking Back, an online event organised by the UK Government's Counter Fraud Expert Services as part of International Fraud Awareness Week. The session explores the increasingly sophisticated capabilities of AI-generated communication and the challenges these pose for identifying fraud, impersonation, and synthetic content. It also considers the implications for trust and authenticity as artificial voices and language become more difficult to distinguish from their human counterparts. The event takes place on Tuesday 17 November, 10–11am, and is open to registrants. Register for the online event.

HackaCon 2026: Can AI convincingly recreate a human conversation?

FACTOR's HackaCon 2026 challenged participants to use artificial intelligence to synthesise a convincing, spontaneous-sounding conversation between two specified speakers. Unlike conventional speech synthesis, which typically focuses on individual utterances, the competition asked participants to recreate the complexities of natural conversational interaction, including voice similarity, conversational flow, linguistic content, and creative realism. The submissions have been evaluated by an interdisciplinary judging panel spanning forensic speech science, forensic linguistics, criminology, and conversation analysis. With more than £4,000 in prizes across its competition categories, HackaCon provides an opportunity to explore both the capabilities and limitations of contemporary synthetic speech technologies. Results and awards are being finalised, with further announcements to follow. Learn more about HackaCon and the competition.

Interested in forensic linguistics, speech science, and its intersection with technology?

Follow FACTOR

Lancaster University's FACTOR Lab (Forensic Linguistics, Cybersecurity and Technology Research) brings together researchers and practitioners interested in language, crime, security, technology, and forensic evidence. Anyone interested in forensic linguistics, forensic speech science, and related areas is welcome to subscribe to the FACTOR blog for email updates covering research news, talks, events, jobs, and other opportunities. Many of our talks are open to colleagues and students across the University, and subscribers can choose which categories of updates they receive. Visit the FACTOR blog and sign up for updates.

Lancaster training for scheme to boost number of women in technology

Lancaster University is part of a new government initiative to encourage 300 women into jobs in artificial intelligence (AI), cyber security and other high-growth technology sectors.

The Digital and Technology sector is essential to the UK economy, but women are not equally represented, making up just 21% of the tech sector in 2024, 20% in AI in 2025 and just 16% in cyber security, despite comprising 48% of the UK workforce. The TechFirst Women’s Programme aims to support women across the UK move into paid jobs in AI, cyber security, engineering biology, quantum technologies, semiconductors and advanced communications by March 2027, while giving employers access to a pool of skilled talent and a package of tailored support.

Mathematician awarded £2 million UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

Dr Henry Moss has been awarded a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to develop the mathematical underpinnings of generative AI to accelerate scientific discovery. Dr Moss, who is part of the Mathematics for AI in Real-world Systems (MARS) group in the School of Mathematical Sciences, is an expert in fundamental AI research and develops machine learning tools and software for real-world applications.

Ten Lancaster papers accepted at NeurIPS 2026

Lancaster researchers have had ten papers accepted at the main conference of the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2026), one of the leading international venues for machine learning research. The conference, which attracts more than 20,000 attendees, takes place in Sydney from 6–12 December, with satellite events in Paris and Atlanta from 9–13 December.

Seven of the papers come from the Mathematics for AI in Real-world Systems (MARS) group in the School of Mathematical Sciences, which also has a further six papers accepted at NeurIPS workshops. The main-conference papers span the group’s core interests in probabilistic machine learning and AI for science, including new ways of conditioning Gaussian processes on physical laws and language (Conditioning Gaussian Processes on Almost Anything), diffusion models for image reconstruction (Tempered Guided Diffusion), active learning and Bayesian optimisation for molecular modelling and AI design pipelines (Active Learning for Gaussian Process Regression Under Self-Induced Boltzmann Weights; Search at the Cost of Sampling: Nearly-Instant Latent Space Bayesian Optimization; BO-Arena: An Evolving Benchmark for High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimisation), generative models for hypergraphs (Hypergraph Generation via Structured Stochastic Diffusion) and conformal prediction under contaminated data (When Does Trimming Help Conformal Prediction? A Retained-Law Diagnostic under Calibration Contamination).

The remaining three papers come from the Multimodal Perception and Intelligence Learning (MPIL) Lab, led by Professor Jun Liu in the School of Computing and Communications, and cover task-oriented dexterous grasp generation for robotics (NDPP-Grasp: Non-Differentiable Physical Plausibility Constraint-Guided Task-Oriented Dexterous Grasp Generation), self-evolving clinical reasoning for radiology report generation (Look Before You Leap: Self-Evolving Clinical Reasoning with Psychometric Preference Optimization for Radiology Report Generation) and causal structure discovery in visual generation (Dynamic Causal Structure Discovery for Autoregressive Visual Generation).

Our congratulations to all of the authors. The full list of MARS papers, including the workshop papers, can be found here, and the MPIL Lab’s publications here.

Propose a project for the N8 CIR Summer 2027 Internship Programme

Could a talented student give your computational or digital research project a boost next summer? Proposing an internship project is a chance to move your work forward while helping shape the next generation of digital research talent.

N8 CIR is delighted to invite project proposals for the fifth cohort of its internship programme, which will run in Summer 2027.

Each N8 university can host up to four eight-week internships, with each student's £3,500 stipend funded by N8 CIR. Each project should involve a digital Research Technical Professional (dRTP), and we fund an hour of their time each week. If you are unable or don't know where to start finding a dRTP, we can help.

Whether you're a researcher or a dRTP, we'd love to hear your ideas. We particularly welcome proposals from postdoctoral and early career researchers who want to take their first step into supervising.

A previous supervisor reflected on their experience:

"It provided me with an opportunity to gain experience as a lead supervisor on a project. The student acted as a catalyst for a new avenue of development of the research. His ideas and work have accelerated software development across the wider team."

The call for project proposals closes on Monday 4 January 2027, midnight.

Full guidance and the application form are on the PI application page.

Want to learn more? Visit the N8 CIR website to find out about the internship scheme and explore projects completed by previous interns.

Internship places are competitive, so a clear, well-scoped project will help you attract strong applicants. Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested.

DSAIL Membership

New Members

Amir Sheikhan (School of Social Sciences), Pouya Farzi (SCC), Tessa Wilkie (SCC), Lauren Halsall (Health Research),Carly Anderson (Psychology) & Congye Wang (Mathematical Sciences)

Current DSAIL members are warmly encouraged to invite new Lancaster colleagues and students to join the Data Science and AI Institute. Interested candidates can reach out via dsail@lancaster.ac.uk or sign up here.

Events

Dr Claire Hardaker, Professor of Forensic Linguistics and DSAIL Integrity Theme Lead

When: 11-12 on Tuesday 3^rd November 2026

Where: Fylde Lecture Theatre 1

Title: Trust in the VoiD: Following the trail of £580,000 of public funds

Abstract: This talk explores what happens to trust and accountability when generative AI tools help decide who receives public funding, and who doesn't. It draws on a recent bid for funding into AI-generated voices which was then screened out at the AI assessment stage before reaching a human and asks whether large language models can be relied on as reviewers.

Phil Horner, Chief Strategy and Performance Officer at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, will give a lecture at HIO on 11^th November

The Faculty of Health and Medicine is hosting an inaugural lecture by Honorary Professor Phil Horner, Chief Strategy and Performance Officer at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCFT).

His lecture entitled "Dialects of Data: maximising the power of numbers in the NHS" will be delivered in HI One at 5pm on November 11.

Professor Horner has worked in the NHS for more than a quarter of a century, building a career that has spanned roles including mental health social worker, psychological therapist, team leader, service manager, Director of Business Intelligence, and now Executive Director at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCFT).

Since 2021, Phil and his team have also been key collaborators within the CHICAS group on data science projects across our MSc and PhD programmes, particularly those focused on access to mental health services in the region and inequalities in access to care. This work has led to the emergence of the ALASCA group (Aligning Lancashire and South Cumbria Academic Research to Practice), which brings together academics from Lancaster University (LU) and colleagues from LSCFT to undertake research that uses data science to directly inform service improvement. Some of this work will now continue to develop further through the recently funded NIHR Mental Health Research Group.

Register here f for the talk in HI One Lecture Theatre.

Haripriya Harikumar is a Research Fellow at the Centre for AI Fundamentals at the University of Manchester - Weds 18^th November at 12 o'clock in Sky Lounge (Infolab)

Title: Robust Bayesian Decision Making under Adversarial Uncertainty

Abstract: Scientific experiments are often designed to maximise information gain, yet in many applications the primary objective is to support reliable downstream decision-making. Existing decision-aware experimental design and active learning methods typically assume well-specified outcome models and implicitly rely on the stability of the optimal decision under real-world perturbations. In practice, however, experimental outcomes are frequently influenced by hidden or weakly modelled effects, which can substantially alter decision optimality and lead to misleading conclusions. We study sequential adversarially robust decision-aware experimental design, where data acquisition has to take into account information gain against plausible worst-case unexpected effects, modelled here as variation in adversarial variables. Building on Bayesian decision theory, we formalise an adversarially robust optimal decision under this setting and derive a principled Bayesian experimental design criterion. The criterion explicitly targets decision stability rather than nominal optimality. Experiments show that conventional decision-aware design can converge rapidly to high-confidence yet fragile decisions, while our robustness-aware approach yields decisions that are significantly more stable and reliable under adversarial variation.

Come to the Sky Lounge at 12 o'clock - drinks and refreshments will be provided :)

Women in AI, by Fuzzy Labs. Meetup #1. 24th November.

GM Digital Security Hub (DiSH)Manchester, England

Please register on Eventbrite

Tuesday, 24^th November • 6 PM - 8 PM

Catch up with women shaking up the tech world and build your network at this Women in AI meetup by Fuzzy Labs.

Come and join us for our 1st Women in AI meet up at Fuzzy Labs. There will be a talk given by Ruby Motabhoy, followed by a panel discussion on “Self-branding and navigating tech as a woman.”

Hosted by Fuzzy Labs, this will be an opportunity to network and build a community of women in tech, bringing together people who build, deploy, and operate AI and ML systems in production.

We’ll be joined by a panel of experts and practitioners to explore what it means to be a woman in tech, and how to navigate the challenges that can come up.

Many more details to follow!

Your host for the evening is Savannah Holmes, Junior Applied AI Engineer at Fuzzy Labs.

Pizza, drinks, and mathematical socks included as always.

Turing News and Events

AI For Science Summit, Turing Innovation Catalyst, Manchester,

26^th November 2026, 12:00—18:00

(NB: the Alan Turing Institute is not involved in the organisation of this event)

The Turing Innovation Catalyst, together with Conception X and ARIA, are hosting the AI for Science Summit, which will bring together a programme of events connecting researchers and science founders translating ambitious research into companies and breakthroughs that matter.

Find out more and registerhere.

Call for Proposals 2026: Vulnerabilities and Mitigation in Non-Terrestrial Networks

Non-terrestrial networks pose a unique cybersecurity challenge for defence and security. They are attractive to attackers as they are uniquely positioned to aid in multiple facets of a conflict, highlighted by the usage of Starlink satellites and terminals in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. This call for proposals is to examine the infrastructure that provides connectivity via Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations and other orbital regimes, identifying potential vulnerabilities, associated risks, and possible mitigation strategies.

This is a very tight timescale, it’s for projects to start next month, specifically projects will need to be delivered between the period 2^nd November 2026 – 31^st March 2027.

The team are seeking to commission 2-3 small-scale research activities that are initially supported as pilot studies. Those that show promise may subsequently be further developed into full studies with the parties concerned. There may be an opportunity for the project to be extended into a second phase (to take place between April 2027 – March 2028). Please provide details of an optional extension as part of your application.

A Turing Principal Researcher from the Defence and Security team will work closely with the commissioned academic groups to ensure close collaboration between the UK Government research teams and those in the academic community.

We would expect research activities to be related to, but not necessarily restricted to one or more of the following areas of interest:

• analysis of photonic links
• RF communications and telecommunications
• network architecture and routing
• 1 LEO constellations and orbital security

Find out more and apply here.

The Alan Turing Institute – Job Opportunities

We’re hiring: help turn cutting-edge AI and data science into capability for defence and national security.

Our Defence and National Security programme builds capability that gets used, not just published.

We’re bringing together applied engineering expertise to take research from across the institute and academia and turn it into deployable tools for real-world use.

The team will tackle complex, disparate data and build the pipelines and tooling that help analysts and decision-makers act with confidence.

Interested? Learn more and apply now: https://bit.ly/4zRp1lf

Discover where you can excel:

Applied Engineer: https://bit.ly/4kgC5Mv

Senior Applied Engineer: https://bit.ly/4BsWp3r

Senior Data Engineer: https://bit.ly/48fEsI7

Lead Applied Engineer: https://bit.ly/4z1AApr

Funding

Open Multimodal AI Benchmark

UKOMAIN Call for Proposals Round 3

UKOMAIN Funding Call 2026: Challenge-led Open Multimodal AI Benchmark (OMAIB-R3)

• Total funding: £200,000
• Max award value: £50,000 (full economic cost: £62,500)
• Official launch: 29 September 2026
• Briefing webinar: slides, video recording
• Call for proposals (Full Document): Last updated on 7 October 2026
• Challenge proposal deadline: 16:00 UK time, 6 November 2026
• Selected challenges announced: 20 November 2026
• Sandpit application deadline: 11 December 2026, 16:00
• Sandpit: 21–22 January 2027, Sheffield

For any questions regarding the call, please email us at omaib-ukomain-group@sheffield.ac.uk.

Full details can be found here

The Data Science and AI Institute at Lancaster (DSAIL) invites nominations for three prizes

The Data Science and AI Institute at Lancaster (DSAIL) invites nominations for three prizes celebrating excellence and inclusive impact across data science and AI. We particularly welcome applications from individuals from historically underrepresented and underserved backgrounds, and we will make adjustments for career breaks.

Who can nominate: Self-nominations and nominations by others are equally welcome. For those in leadership roles, please encourage and support others to apply.

Eligibility (all prizes): Nominees must be current members of DSAIL. Further eligibility criteria for individual prizes are set out below.

Award for each prize: Certificate + Gift voucher (one prize per category).

Inclusive Selection Process: Applications from individuals from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds are particularly encouraged, and special consideration will be given to applicants who have faced systemic barriers in academia. Additional time will be allowed for career breaks. A wide variety of reasons will be recognised. For parental leave, we allow 18 months per child for birthing parents, 6 months per child for non-birthing parents by default, but please state if a longer duration is required.

Please see DSAIL webpage for full prize detail criteria.

Submissions details:

Closing date:17:00, Friday 27 November 2026

Call for Applications: Reducing Structural Bias in Data Science & AI Grant

Data Science and AI @ Lancaster (DSAIL) is delighted to announce a 2026 call for applications to the Reducing Structural Bias in Data Science & AI Grant.

This grant supports research, engagement, and innovation that confronts structural bias in AI and data science, particularly the kinds of bias that negatively impact underrepresented groups. Despite the transformative potential of AI and data-driven technologies, these systems often reflect and reinforce the biases embedded in the data, methods, and structures that produce them, and in their anticipated usage and users. AI models are often based on data volunteered by specific sections of society, as opposed to carefully designed scientific studies. This means that AI results might be less appropriate for, or even harmful to, underrepresented or marginalised groups.

This funding opportunity seeks to support researchers and practitioners working to tackle these challenges head-on.

The application form and criteria can be found below.

Application: DSAIL Reducing Structural Bias in Data Science & AI Grant 2026

Call for Applications: Gender Diversity in Data Science & AI Grant

Data Science and AI @ Lancaster (DSAIL) is delighted to announce a 2026 call for applications to the Gender Diversity in Data Science and AI Grant.

This grant supports the research activities of women and other marginalised genders (including non-binary and gender-diverse individuals) in the fields of data science and AI. Women are significantly underrepresented in this area, with only 22% of data science professionals being women (Wajcman et al, 2024, Turing Institute Report). This grant aims to address gender disparities and improve retention of women and marginalised gender researchers by providing financial support for research, career development, and increased visibility in the field. Apply now to help build a more inclusive future in data science.

The application form and full criteria can be found below.

Application: DSAIL Gender Diversity in Data Science and AI Grant 2026

Please send your applications, along with a short CV (max. 2 pages using the template below), to j.carradus1@lancaster.ac.ukwith the subject heading “Gender Diversity in Data Science Grant Proposal” by Deadline 15:00 Friday 13 Nov 2026

Current Job/PhD Opportunities

Fully funded PhDs in Applied Mathematics or Mathematical AI at Lancaster University

MARS: Mathematics for AI in Real-world Systems, based in the School of Mathematical Sciences, is offering fully funded, four-year PhD studentships for UK students starting in October 2007.

For October 2027 entry we have two studentships available:

• MARS studentship: Our offer includes an enhanced tax-free stipend, tuition fees and a research, training and support grant.
• MARS/G-Research studentship: In addition to the standard MARS offer, this studentship also

includes £5k for equipment, £6k for compute and opportunities to attend G-Research scholar events.

Details about MARS supervisors and their PhD supervision interests can be found here.

For these studentships, we particularly welcome applications from women who remain underrepresented in

the mathematical sciences.

Deadline 31^st January 2027.

More details about the MARS PhD Programmes and how to apply can be found on our website.

PhD advertised through NWBIO

https://www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/doctoraltraining/northwestbio/projects/bioscience/richardmort/#d.en.913220

AI-Powered Genomics for Climate-Resilient Livestock: From Cattle to Complex Traits

Find out more and apply for this PhD position here

Co-supervised across Lancaster University and the University of Glasgow, you'll gain broad training in AI, bioinformatics, genetics and statistics. Because the framework is built to generalise, the skills and tools you develop will carry over directly to other traits, species and datasets well beyond this project, from human disease to crop science.

Related Blogs

• 

  Using Micro:bit to Understand Machine Learning

• 

  DSAIL - Newsletter October 2026

• 

  DSAIL - Newsletter September 2026

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed by our bloggers and those providing comments are personal, and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Lancaster University. Responsibility for the accuracy of any of the information contained within blog posts belongs to the blogger.