Digital Research Conference 2026
Took part in the Digital Research Ambassadors Programme panel discussion at the University of Edinburgh’s second annual Digital Research Conference, organised by Digital Research Services. The day mixed short talks, panels, posters, and an expo on how digital tools – especially AI – are changing research, and how to use them responsibly.
After an introduction to the programme, each of us on the panel introduced ourselves and our motivation for joining the scheme, followed by a chaired Q&A with questions from the audience. The discussion centred on experiences of interdisciplinary collaboration and communication, the challenges and growth that come from working beyond your comfort zone, the broader impact of the internship, developing digital skills, how to scale good digital research practice, and advice for the new cohort of ambassadors.
I was a Digital Research Ambassador in 2023 and 2024, working on an experimental measurements database for granular materials and on measuring originality in student work written with and without ChatGPT.
Edinburgh Futures Institute, Edinburgh, Scotland
Hi 👋😊! I’m Vidminas (most people call me Vid), a postdoc on the CHAILD project splitting time between the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford and the Institute of Education, University College London.
I am interested in technology and education, and more specifically researching and developing technologies that empower people. The current CHAILD project focus is about defining and designing for agency in children and young people’s use of AI tools.
I completed my PhD at the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation at the University of Edinburgh in March 2026, supervised by Professor Fiona McNeill and Professor Judy Robertson. The project was about better understanding and designing tools to help teachers search for educational resources.
I am always keen to chat about teaching and learning, human-computer interaction, participatory research, and designing applications for good, feel free to get in touch!