We are excited to announce the first Environmental impacts of computing in health & life sciences research workshop! 

When: 7th of November, 2023, 10am to 4pm GMT

Where: Wellcome Trust (London, UK)

Format: in person and online (hybrid)

More details: on the event website

Extended registration deadline for in-person tickets: register by 24/11/2023!

Computations are now an integral part of research in health and life sciences, but also come with large and underestimated environmental costs. When considering computer manufacturing, and the energy required to store and process data, it becomes crucial to acknowledge and mitigate the contribution of our research to climate change.

This free one-day workshop will include presentations from practising health and life scientists, success stories of more environmentally-friendly computing and group discussions. Topics will include the carbon footprint of high-performance computing, energy-efficient data processing pipelines, and the benefits of efficient programming. We will debate what barriers to sustainable computing exist and work towards potential solutions. This event will also be a chance to network with others interested in this topic, and contribute to an emerging community of climate-conscious scientists.

This workshop is for researchers in the health and life sciences (e.g. neuroimaging, biology, biochemistry, genetics) who use heavy computational resources for their work (i.e. analyses that run for several hours and/or use institutional servers). It will also be relevant to researchers from other fields of science who rely on heavy computation, or for stakeholders involved with academic research that relies on heavy computation (e.g. funders, institutional IT service providers).

If your computing usage is mostly word/excel/web browser, then computing is probably a minor part of your carbon footprint and this may not be the most relevant to you (but you are very welcome if you're interested in the topic anyway!).

Importantly, you don't need any prior knowledge of sustainability to come, or expertise in computer science. An interest in reducing the carbon footprint of your research is all you need!

Registration is free and travel bursaries are available (you can apply for a bursary by completing this form). For those unable to attend in person, there is the option to register for remote attendance. If booking for in person attendence, please do so by October 24th.

Find more information on our website

We hope to see you on November 7th!