NetDRIVE Autumn Gathering 2026 Agenda
NetDRIVE Autumn Gathering 2026 Agenda
Join the NetDRIVE community in Bristol from 4 to 6 November 2026 to galvanise collective action toward more sustainable digital research infrastructure. Please see the draft agenda for the event below. The day start and end times are confimed but the final agenda is subject to change.
Further details of the event are available here
Day 1: Critical Connections
Wednesday 4th November 2026 - In Person at Watershed
12:00 – 13:00 Registration & lunch
13:00 – 14:00 Welcome to Bristol
Welcome and introductions to NetDRIVE as a project and to Watershed, our host on Bristol’s harbourside.
Martin Juckes, NetDRIVE Principal Investigator, University of Oxford
Clare Reddington, CEO Watershed & Visiting Professor, UWE Bristol
14:00 – 15:00 Critical Connections and Possibilities
This session aims to support participants to move beyond disciplinary silos, towards creating critical connections to seed possibilities for mobilising change.
15:00 – 15:30 Break. Hot drinks available in W3
15:30 – 17:00 NetDRIVE Working Groups. W3 (break out rooms, W1 and Pervasive Media Studio meeting room)
Building on the three established areas for working groups (Training; Supply Chain Environmental Sustainability Clauses; Metrics and Reporting), this session offers a brief overview of three new Working Groups and the opportunity to break out into groups to shape their direction.
The Future Priorities Working Group – aimed at identifying key activities that need to be continued and, where possible, identifying funding opportunities.
Roadmap to NetZero Working Group – aimed at reviewing the implementation of the roadmap and discuss how it can be exploited to focus and coordinate community activity.
Waste and supply Working Group – aimed at exploring the options for the Digital Research Infrastructure community to take a leadership position in monitoring and facilitating change in supply chain transparency around emissions and often poorly regulated waste management.
17:00 – 17:30 Posters
18:30 - 20.30 Dinner at Harbourside Restaurant
Day 2: Coordinating Change & Moving towards impact
Thursday 5th November 2026 - Hybrid at Watershed & online
09.30 - 10.00 Tea & Coffee
10:00 – 11:00 Welcome
Martin Juckes, NetDRIVE Principal Investigator, University of Oxford, Tarek Virani, Deputy Director of the Digital Cultures Research Centre and Associate Professor of Creative Industries
Keynotes
Professor Neil Chue Hung, Director, Institute for Research Software (formerly Software Sustainability Institute)
Professor Laura Fogg-Rogers, Professor for Sustainability Engagement at UWE Bristol’s School of Engineering.
11:00 – 12:00 Coordinating Institutional and Social Change
Institutional and social change requires coordinated effort. Join panellists engaged in coordinating and navigating institutional and social change to decarbonise. Panellist will share how they got started, and the need for cultural approaches that expand beyond NetZero metrics alone.
Chair: Jo Lansdowne, Director of Research, Watershed, and Visiting Professor, UWE Bristol
Watershed Environment Group
David Redfern – Head of IT and online
Akshara Pulpa – Co-Director, Wild and Generous
Cultural sector
TBC
NetDRIVE community
TBC
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:30 NetDRIVE Community Projects - lightning talks
An opportunity to hear, discuss and connect up insights from 13 projects designed to progress change in four key areas:
Supply Chain Sustainability
Monitoring Usage and Impact
Training and User Behaviour
UK Compute Roadmap
14:30 - 15:00 posters and demonstrations (W3) Hot drinks available
15:00 – 15:30 Break. Hot drinks available in W3
15:30 – 16:15 NetDRIVE Clusters
This session shares an impact focused approach to clustering across projects to generate collaboration, integration and shared outcomes.
16:15 – 17:00 Integration and Moving to Impact
Find out more about the latest integration proposals which seek to foster effective collaboration across teams working on existing projects. An overview of the integration work will be followed by short presentations, a Q&A and open discussion to move towards impact.
*From 10am – 5pm, demos and posters are exhibited in W3 – a list of Demos and Poster abstracts is available in the delegate pack. The Digital Cultures Research Centre artist in residence, Duncan Speakman, will share a new interactive composition in the Pervasive Media Studio meeting room between 10 – 5pm.
Day 3: Reflections and coordinated actions
Friday 6th November 2026 - In Person at Watershed
09:30 – 10:00 Tea & Coffee in W3
10:00 – 11:00 Plenary
11:00 – 12:00 Break Out Discussions
Join a breakout group to tackle specific practitioner-based, institutional or sectoral barriers to unlock transformational change and coordinated collective action.
12:00 – 13:00 Actions
Each breakout group will propose and feedback a series of coordinated actions
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 Close