Events
DAFNI Conference 2022 – Environmental impacts
Updated on December 9 2025
The Data and Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (DAFNI) was officially launched in July 2021 and is fast growing its community of researchers whose primary focus is delivering insights on how we can improve our everyday infrastructure.
The theme of this conference was Environmental Impacts. We shared all the research that our community is involved in, particularly looking at climate adaptation and developing a greater understanding of how we might influence the path of climate change.
DAFNI’s initial project stage was funded by EPSRC as part of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities, and in July 2021 we were delighted to receive continuation funding from EPSRC as part of their Resource Only Strategic Equipment (ROSE).
09:00 Arrival – Breakfast networking
09:30 Welcome and introduction
SPEAKERS
Professor Stephen Hallett
Chair of Applied Environmental Informatics, Cranfield University
09:40 Keynote presentation
The future of modelling in support of infrastructure decisions
SPEAKERS
Professor Jim Hall
new Commissioner for the National Infrastructure Commission
10:10 DAFNI – Platform as a service
SPEAKERS
Dr Brian Matthews
DAFNI Facility Lead, Scientific Computing, STFC
10:30 The OpenCLIM Project: supporting future risk and adaptation assessments
Video coming soon
SPEAKERS
Professor Robert Nicholls
Director of the Tyndall Centre, University of East Anglia
10:45 OpenCLIM: Developing a framework for a national scale assessment of climate change risk and adaptation
SPEAKERS
Dr Craig Robson
Research Associate in Geospatial Data Science, University of Newcastle
11:00 How DAFNI’s platform is supporting water modelling in the UK
SPEAKERS
Dr Jonny Wilson
Water Resources Modelling Lead, Environment Agency
11:15 Refreshments and networking
11:35 Building NERC’s Digital Solutions Hub – a user centric approach
SPEAKERS
Professor Richard Kingston
University of Manchester and PI for NERC’s Digital Solutions programme
11:50 Q&A panel session
Chaired by Professor Stephen Hallett, Chair of Applied Environmental Informatics, Cranfield University
SPEAKERS
Professor Jim Hall
National Infrastructure Commission
Dr Brian Matthews
STFC
Dr Craig Robson
University of Newcastle
Dr Jonny Wilson
Environmental Agency
Professor Richard Kingston
University of Manchester
12:20 Networking lunch, poster session and exhibition
13:30 Welcome back and introduction to the afternoon session
SPEAKERS
Professor Liz Varga
Professor of Complex Systems, Head of UCL’s Infrastructure Systems Institute, UCL
13:40 Keynote presentation - The future of connected Digital Twins
SPEAKERS
Mark Enzer
OBE, Strategic Advisor, Mott MacDonald and Former Head of the National Digital Twin Programme
14:00 Q&A session
14:15 Engaging with UKCRIC: An overview of UKCRIC Facilities, Clusters, Scientific Missions and Systemic Perspectives
SPEAKERS
Dr Tom Dolan
UKCRIC Senior Research Fellow, UCL
14:30 Analysis pipeline for hydrological simulation in the PYRAMID project
SPEAKERS
Dr Robin Wardle
Research Software Engineer, Newcastle University
14:45 Maritime shipping digital twin for construction waste distribution
SPEAKERS
Dr Evangelia Manola
Research Fellow in UCL Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering
15:00 Refreshments and networking
15:15 CReDo – Climate flood resilience Digital Twin
SPEAKERS
Dr Jens Jensen
Scientific Computing, STFC
Dr Ben Mawdsley
Hartree Centre, STFC
Dr Jethro Akroyd
University of Cambridge and CMCL
15:35 A flexible approach to local energy modelling
SPEAKERS
Dr André Paul Neto-Bradley
Research Associate, University of Cambridge
15:50 Q & A panel session
Chaired by Professor Liz Varga, UCL
SPEAKERS
Mark Enzer
Dr Jens Jensen
Scientific Computing, STFC
Dr Robin Wardle
Newcastle University
Dr Tom Dolan
UCL
Dr André Neto-Bradley
University of Cambridge
16:15 Conference closing remarks
SPEAKERS
Dr Brian Matthews
DAFNI Facility Lead, Scientific Computing, STFC