DAFNI Newsletter, May 2026

Introduction

Our annual conference is continuing to take shape and I am very pleased to let you know that, alongside Professor Jim Hall, our second keynote speaker will be Margaret Read, Strategy and Policy Director at the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA).

Margaret was previously Director of Policy at the National Infrastructure Commission, where she led the Commission’s policy work on energy, water and wastewater, flood risk management and infrastructure resilience.

Before her role at the Commission, she worked as part of the RAPID leadership team, a joint Ofwat, Environment Agency and Drinking Water Inspectorate unit to speed up water supply infrastructure delivery. She has extensive experience leading policy development in Whitehall, principally on water supply, flood and coastal erosion risk management, access to the environment and a number of other environmental issues.

I am further delighted to let you know that James Daniel, UK Power Networks and Elliot Christou, Connected Places Catapult will also be joining us to give an update on CReDO. The Climate Resilience Demonstrator (CReDO) is a groundbreaking digital twin platform for climate change adaptation that improves system-wide resilience across infrastructure networks. James and Elliot will give a talk on the CReDO+ Beta project which aims to predict and mitigate the risks to energy networks from extreme weather events.

Our Conference theme this year is ‘Climate and Security Resilience’, with a dual focus on Government Industrial Strategy, and on Clean Energy. Book now for 10th September 2026 – we look forward to welcoming you to Rhodes House in Oxford.

Our new Fellows are settling into their roles, each of whom are now an ambassador for DAFNI. They will further sustainable research, promote their research within the DAFNI Centre of Excellence for Resilient Infrastructure Analysis, build networks across government, industry and academia and input into DAFNI’s Roadmap. You can find out more about them at our dedicated DAFNI 2026 Fellows page on our website and follow our LinkedIn page for a detailed introduction to them and their projects.

Dr Brian Matthews, DAFNI Programme Lead