Turing Seminar Series

This series of seminars, facilitated by the Turing Liaison Team at The Jean Golding Institute, welcomes academic guests presenting on a broad range of topics across the theme of data science and AI.

The Turing Seminar Series for the 2025/26 academic year has now finished. Many thanks to all who attended and to all the fantastic speakers. Stay tuned to this page for seminars in the 2026/27 series!

Upcoming Seminars: 

  • Wednesday, October 28, 2026. 2-3pm
    • Title: Technical Standard Setting in EU AI Policy Implementation
    • Speaker: Alison Harcourt, University of Exeter
    • Venue: PHYS BLDG G12 MOTT
    • Abstract:
      • The development of harmonised EN standards is central to the operation of the EU AI Act. They are aimed at protecting citizens and promoting European values but fulfil wider goals of digital sovereignty and curbing US tech dominance in the standards field. However, by the end of 2025, no AI EN standards had been published and this delay resulted in a ‘stop-the-clock’ rule under the 2026 AI Omnibus which ties compliance deadlines to the availability of EN standards. Meanwhile, Article 50 of the Act, which requires companies to label AI use in text, images, audio and video, came into effect in August 2026. Subsequently, companies have been adopting readily available private sector standards to meet the deadline with Google’s Synth ID and OpenAI’s Sora 2 in most use along with C2PA. If C2PA becomes a dominant global standard with ISO adoption, it could limit the scope for an EN solution. The conclusion is that, even though EN standard setting was designed to restrict US influence, it has enabled large US tech groups to govern the agenda. At the same time, decreasingly reliance on EN standards removes stakeholder and NRA oversight and is arguably diluting European policy goals.
    • Bio:
      • Professor Harcourt specialises in policy change in digital markets and is interested in solutions to regulatory problems based around the citizen/consumer and civil society/third sector voice. She has published on digital market regulation at EU and international levels contributing to academic debates on agenda setting, regulatory competition, soft governance, Europeanisation and policy convergence. Her recent research derives from two ESRC-funded projects: International Professional Fora, which examines civil society participation in internet governance, and a Senior Fellowship on the UK in a Changing Europe programme, investigating the impact of Brexit on digital market regulation. Alison is currently completing her forthcoming book, Digital Sovereignty in Europe (Oxford University Press, 2027). Her recent books include Brexit and the Digital Single Market and Global Standard Setting in Internet Governance, both of which address how geopolitics has produced shifts in policy forums restacking the deck for political actors competing for influence and resources.

Previous Seminars: 

  • Wednesday, 4th March 2026
    • Title: Machine Learning Assisted Multi-Scale Mechanical Simulation of Large Composite Structures
    • Speaker: Aewis Hii
  • Wednesday, 18th February 2026
    • Title: Convergent Methods for Koopman Operators on Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces
    • Speaker: Nicolas Boullé
  • Wednesday, 19th November 2025
    • Title: Tracing Affective and Cognitive Patterns Across Scales: From Minds to Networks to Human-AI Systems
    • Speaker: Andreia Sofia Teixeira, Associate Professor at the Network Science Institute, Northeastern University London
  • Wednesday, 22nd October 2025
  • Wednesday 24th September 2025
    • Title: Do we know what AI will know?
    • Speaker: Krzysztof Janowicz: Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography and Regional Research at the University of Vienna
    • Location: Peel Lecture Theatre, University of Bristol
  • Wednesday 6 November:
  • Wednesday 20 November:
    • Title: Trustworthy Digital Twins: designing, developing, and deploying open and reproducible pipelines
    • Speaker: Chris Burr, Head of the Innovation and Impact Hub, Turing Research and Innovation Cluster for Digital Twins, Alan Turing Institute
    • Chris Burr slides 21.11.24 (PDF, 6,304kB)
  • Wednesday 4 December:
    • Title: What can your shopping basket say about your health?
    • Speaker: Anya Skatova, Senior Research Fellow, Bristol Medical School (PHS)
  • Wednesday 15 January:
  • Wednesday 12 February:
    • Title: Temporal models for Word Sense Disambiguation in historical texts
    • Speaker: Barbara McGillivray, Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Cultural Computation, Kings College London
    • Barbara Mcgillivray slides (PDF, 6,859kB)
  • Wednesday 26 February:
  • Wednesday 12 March:
    • Title: "Cognition-first evolution"
    • Speaker: Richard Watson, Professor, (evolutionary biology and computer science), University of Southampton
  • Wednesday 26 March:
    • Title: "Big data as propeller for dynamic and time-sensitive service industries: a tourism sector perspective."
    • Speaker: Nikolaos Stylos, Associate Professor in Marketing and Digital Innovation, Business School, University of Bristol
    • Niko Stylos seminar slides (PDF, 1,287kB)
  • Wednesday 9 April: