Over Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th November, BioSS came together to meet in Edinburgh for our 2025 Rob Kempton Lecture and Annual General Meeting, held this year at the Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue.

On Monday 24th, Dr Kirsty Hassall, Assistant Professor in Applied Statistics at the University of Warwick, delivered the Rob Kempton Lecture on “Agricultural monitoring of soil, pests and beneficial insects”. In her talk, Kirsty introduced us to a range of emerging technologies she considers for monitoring and surveillance applications purposes within the agricultural sector. She shared her research journey with us, exploring a selection of statistical and mathematical challenges each prospective technology may introduce to the sector.

Before Kirsty delivered her Rob Kempton Lecture, we hosted a ‘BioSS Science Showcase’, where several of our own researchers outlined their ongoing work. This session included talks on:

• “Improving aphid first flight predictions with distributed lag models” by Dave Miller
• “Bayesian time-varying autoregressive models for aphid abundance, using data from Scottish suction trap sites” by John Addy
• “Real-Time Auto-Monitoring of Livestock: Quantitative Framework and Challenges” by Sarah Brocklehurst
• “Animal movement as a monitoring tool in ecology” by Katherine Whyte

In addition to the BioSS student and staff team, we were delighted to be joined by many colleagues from across the Scottish and wider research sector for our Science Showcase and Rob Kempton lecture. After these talks, we held a poster session highlighting further BioSS work, before enjoying an evening meal together at the David Bann Restaurant.

The following day, our staff came together again for a series of group ‘Impact Sessions’, led by our Head of Research Glenn Marion, which featured further contributions from several other research staff. Throughout the morning, we celebrated the deep and varied impact our research has, and explored ways to further strengthen and communicate our impact. Later in the day, we went on a group walk in Holyrood Park, enjoying the late autumnal weather together.

These two days of activities were an excellent celebration of the diverse, impactful work BioSS continues to deliver for an ever-increasing range of stakeholders, and of another successful year for our Institute!