Blog: ACRC / AIM-CISC Symposium 2025

134 delegates, 42 speakers, 35 posters, 3 exhibitions, 2 days: 1 Symposium. The 2025 ACRC / AIM CISC Symposium is over for another year. 

With the 2025 Symposium to be the last under the current funding structure of the ACRC, we hoped it would match, or even surpass the previous editions.

Months of planning led to a two-day structure once again, six different sessions, covering a variety of different styles and topics.

The symposium was launched by Prof Bruce Guthrie, Director of the ACRC, who then passed on to Jo Turnbull, who offered her experiences of PPIE (Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement) with the ACRC.

Our keynote presentation came from Prof Graham Ellis, Deputy Chief medical officer (CMO) for the Scottish Government, who gave an overview of the importance of research around older people. He was followed by Prof Julie Jacko, who looked at Innovation and Engagement, before handing over to our exhibition teams, who introduced their offerings. 

Academy PhD student Melody Wang displayed her ‘Can AI Represent Care’ experience, with a variety of images, videos and interactive displays to consider. The team from the Integrated Technologies of Care work package, Dr Nusa Faric, Dr Ricardo Contreras, Dr Longfei Chen, Dr Usman Anwar and Fan Yang, delivered a Living Lab, showing their varied sensors and monitors in action. The Images of Care exhibition also featured prominently, introduced by Prof John Vines and PPIE Rep Nahid Aslam.

Our second session was on the topic of Data and Care, and was chaired by Prof Amy O’Donnell from Newcastle University. Prof Cathie Sudlow, newly installed Director of the Usher Institute talked about why data matters, before Dr Bea Alex discussed the detective capabilities of NLP, and Dr Arlene Casey covered how to make clinical data work. The session was closed by Prof Susan Shenkin, who discussed the opportunities and challenges of data in care homes.

The first session of day two looked at the impact on multiple long-term conditions (MLTC) of place and AI. Chaired by Dr Atul Anand; Prof Alan Marshall, PhD Academy student Laurence Rowley-Abel and Dr Clare MacRae looked at the importance of interdisciplinarity, the complexities of MLTC and Place research and the role of physical place-based characteristics respectively.

From an AI perspective, Prof Bruce Guthrie presented on clustering of conditions, Prof Jacques Fleuriot looked at the dos and don’ts of the application of AI, and Prof Nazir Lone discussed the understanding of acute care pathways

Session 4 was the ACRC Academy Showcase, with all presenters, and chair Misty Wilcox, students in the ACRC Academy. An overview of the Academy was provided by Anna Bryan and Jonny Flint. This was followed by students talking about their experiences with internships and work packages: Cameron Wilson, Lara Johnson and Clare Halpenny, with Emile McSwiggan and Anna Bryan talking about a successful international collaboration.

Interventions was the topic for session five, and it kicked off with a panel discussion led by Prof Maria Kristiansen from Copenhagen University. The panel featured Dr Jakov Jandrik, Prof Tughrul Arslan, Katherine Crawford, Age Scotland CEO and Peter Smith (PPIE) who offered a variety of perspectives on a series of questions.

Following the panel, Dr David Henderson presented on transforming primary care in Scotland, Dr Beth Bareham talked about her work on virtual wards and Dr Bruce Mason talked about Green Social Prescribing, including a very soothing two minute video on greenspaces.

Our final session looked to the future of ACRC research, and was chaired by Prof Sir Lewis Ritchie. Dr Jean Stafford, ACRC Fellow, discussed mental health and cognitive ageing. Dr Sue Lewis and Iain Scott presented on the Ageing-in Place Standards tool, before Dr Atul Anand talked about systems engineering.

There was then a brief pause for poster prizes, with Dr Caroline Pearce winning the poster for best PDRA submission, and Sam Andres for the best Student poster. After Dr Longfei Chen won the prize for poster bingo, Colin Angus, a PPIE representative, gave us his experiences before Prof Bruce Guthrie thanked everyone and closed the conference.

If that seems like a whirlwind tour of two days, its because it is. A huge amount of information was thrown around, and it would be difficult to pin down everything. However, we have tried. We asked two artists to develop a visual minute of proceedings, which you can find here. This will be displayed in the ACRC office so all visitors and colleagues can investigate further.

Thank you to everyone who was able to come along for the two days, we appreciate you and your input.