The EICDT annual Environmental Intelligence and Beyond (EIB) 2025 event took place in June 2025 at the University of Exeter Streatham Campus. It was a 4 day Grand Challenge event open to PhD students from University of Exeter and rest of UK, including skills and technical workshops, in conjunction with sessions focusing on real-world sustainability challenges.

THE CHALLENGES:

EIB25 was delivered in partnership with three organisations who have set environment and sustainability challenges tied to their core missions:

Surfers Against Sewage
A marine conservation charity based in Cornwall, UK who work with communities to protect oceans, waves, beaches and marine life. The challenge focused on their national sewage live discharge GIS development & NLP for community messaging.

Uplift UK
A non-profit research and campaign organisation focused on facilitating a rapid and fair transition away from fossil fuel production. Uplift presented a challenge around Mapping UK Climate Impacts from Local News Reports.

Met Office
Providing weather services for the public and multiple organisations across the UK and globally. The challenge presented by the Met Office was focused on weather data & terminology development.

SKILLS WORKSHOPS:

• Academic presentation skills
• Generative AI Panel – AI & Sustainability
• Utilising social media effectively
• Data Management & Architecture
• Film development
• NLP, Machine Learning & Computer Vision drop-in
• GIS lunchtime helpdesk