Our students are part of a novel research agenda of Environmental Intelligence, and are increasingly scrutinizing their approach to interdisciplinary working, and their utilisation of AI methods and tools. As well as encouraging the use of AI in research, the UKRI’s AI-CDT model was developed in part to encourage and explore the benefits of inter and trans-disciplinary working, and to enable the research sector to better support research across disciplines into the future.
To capture and explore the challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary working and use of AI, we have developed a small research project investigating the impact of undertaking research at EICDT. This is a chance for our students to stand back and question their experiences and approaches, look at what has worked and what was difficult, and to consider their own perceptions of sustainability & AI and what Environmental Intelligence means to them and their peers.
With this in mind our Legacy research is being carried out by a group of EICDT students alongside their studies, and has unearthed key perceptions and discoveries linked to interdisciplinary working and the use of AI as a tool. Critical to this has been interrogation of the methods and data sources used, self reflection on the cost of AI environmentally versus benefits to research outputs, and the ethics around this.
Methods
Survey:
A survey of all current EICDT students was carried out in January 2025. The focus was to explore the methods, data and tools students were employing for their doctoral projects as well as how interdisciplinary their work is, and what they themselves understand as ‘Environmental Intelligence’. This provided a picture of the breadth of the projects that the EICDT students have undertaken and an insight into how effectively the aims of the CDT have been realised and developed. The methods undertaken were principally CSV analysis alongside a collaborative student-led co-production approach for eliciting more meaning out of the responses to specific questions. The report is being written up in the first half of 2026 and will be published here on the EICDT website.
Interviews:
All students at the EICDT were invited to take part in in-depth interviews exploring their experiences of developing their studentship projects in a interdisciplinary direction, as well as their consideration of sustainable and ethical issues. This paper is also being written up in 2026 and will be submitted for publication later this year.
Sustainability & AI conversation
The EICDT and Centre for Responsible Innovation (CRI) co-hosted a conference of seminars and interactive workshops in September 2025 exploring the sustainability of AI. This was a lively and engaging event bringing together PhD students, academics and external organisations and industry, to debate the challenges around AI in research and industry. See here for more info.
Following the September conference the EICDT and the newly formed UoE Centre for Environmental Intelligence (CEI) have co-hosted two follow-on workshops exploring the environmental implications of AI across the University & how we approach impact quantification, issues of ethics, governance and responsible use, and the role of education and practice across disciplines. This has lead to reporting and examining exactly where AI activity creates sustainability pressures and what questions we need to address as a community.