January 28 2026

Registration has opened for our upcoming NetDRIVE Community meeting taking place in April, “Creating a New Reality: A Sustainable Digital Transformation.”

Creating a New Reality: A Sustainable Digital Transformation
22-23 April 2026
Beecroft Building, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, OX1 3PU
Registration now open (link to registration page below)

This meeting will promote discussion on the shape, constraints, and opportunities of the emerging UK power supply, alongside broader questions of community leadership, scientific credibility, and digital transformation in support of net zero. 

Keynote speakers will include (additional speakers to be confirmed):   

Professor David Wallom, Professor in Informatics, Associate Director - Innovation of the Oxford e-Research Centre 

Professor Myles Allen, Principal Investigator, Oxford Net Zero  

 Meeting objectives  

-Practical approaches to community leadership and scientific credibility in defining and implementing net zero Understanding the shape, constraints, and opportunities of the emerging UK power supply
-Engaging across generations to help guide the digital transformation

 Expected outputs 

-Recommendations on a framework for defining and implementing net zero, including approaches to balancing unavoidable emissions. The aim is not to re-review technical options, but to summarise available and emerging approaches and how these may inform infrastructure procurement policy.
-Draft recommendations on the use of flexible approaches to siting and operating infrastructure to reduce carbon footprint and costs.
-Recommendations for enhancing opportunities for postdoctoral researchers to engage in the development of sustainable digital research infrastructure. Poster sessions will form part of the programme (details to follow). 

The draft agenda is available here.

Registration is free but required, please register here. (Closes on 7 April)

Poster sessions will form part of the programme (call for abstracts to follow)

January 12 2026

July 31 2025

The UKRI Net-Zero Digital Research Infrastructure Vision and Expertise (NetDRIVE) project will fund community activities through three calls. This call, the second, will fund projects up to a total value of £1m. Of that, £200k is reserved for projects led by early career investigators.

We are also announcing funding for three champions, one in the area of community change and two dedicated for early career stages. Our initial call led to the appointment of eight champions.  

Larger projects (£50k upwards) should address at least one topic fully, smaller projects (e.g. hackathons, desk research) may address parts of a topic.  

Projects addressing issues outside the topic list may be considered, but applicants must demonstrate a clear contribution to at least two of the three NetDRIVE objectives: immediate progress towards net zero DRI, enhancing community confidence in the roadmap to net zero DRI, and international leadership. 

Topics and champion roles are categorised as “open” if no career stage restrictions apply and Early Career when they must be led by an early career investigator. 

Please see the NetDRIVE Second Funding Call page for more information, as well as templates for applicants to complete and submit their applications.

July 9 2025

In this update we announce key dates for our second calls for community projects and for champions, dates for our first annual meeting, and the launch of our community forum. 

1. The NetDRIVE 2nd call for community projects will be published on July 31st . 

• The total budget will be £1m (100% FEC, with projects being awarded 80% FEC). 
• The 2nd call will have two components: around 20% of funds will be reserved for projects led by early career applicants (submissions close October 24th) and the remainder will be open to all (submissions close October 10th).

2. There will also be a second call for champions to enhance the team of eight recruited in the first call, with particular focus on attracting people from early career stages and from the social sciences, announced at the same time. 

3. The first NetDRIVE Annual General Meeting will be held in Durham, September 24th to 26th. 

4. To stay in touch with the project please register on our forum: https://sustainable-research-computing.mn.co/

5. In the past months we have allocated funds to three community projects and appointed eight champions, details will follow soon. 

Please do register on our forum to stay in touch and join the discussion.