UKCA science meeting 2026
Welcome!
Dear attendees, this page should provide you with all the information you need in relation to the 2026 UKCA Science Meeting and Hackathon.
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Venue
The Science Meeting will take place at the University of Leeds in the School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability seminar rooms - which is accessed via the SEES department foyer (building 84 near the Chancellor's Court in the centre of the campus map). The Hackathon will be taking place in the Upper Chapel at Fairbairn House (building 6 on the campus map). The campus is about 20 mins walk from the town centre and there are plenty of bus routes that run between the two (and e-bikes / e-scooters available to hire).
Times
All times are in BST. The event will start on Wednesday 15th July at 13:00 (lunch from 12:00) and end on Friday 17th July at 12:00. The Science meeting will take place on days 1 and 2, followed by the Hackathon on days 2 and 3.
The full schedule can be found via this link. This includes session details, a list of poster presentations, and a list of attendees.
- Science Meeting (Weds 13:00 to Thurs 12:00)
Day 1: Attendees are asked to arrive at the SEES department between 12:00 and 13:00 on Wednesday; a plant-based lunch will be provided for all attendees. The first day of the Science Meeting will start at 13:00 and run until 18:00.
Evening plans!
Some of us will be going directly to the Old Bar (at the University Union - go through entrance then down the stairs on the left) at 6pm to get food, a drink or two, then watch the football at 8pm. We may or may not be able to watch it indoors, so we'll bring laptops to watch it on the benches outside :) You are welcome to join us for some or all of this.
You are also more than welcome to head into the city and find somewhere to spend the evening. Erin Raif has kindly put together a list of locations for you:
Indian restaurants on Mill Hill, LS1 5DQ:
Thai restaurants on Vicar Lane, LS1 6:
- Thai A Roy Dee, Zaap Thai, and Mommy Thai
Food halls with multiple options:
- Northern Market LS1 3ED (closest to uni)
- White Cloth Hall LS2 7DA
Sport pubs/bars for the football (may be full/may not be serving food):
- Old Bar - university campus
- The Library - LS2 3AP, 5 minute walk from campus
- Parkside Tavern - city centre, LS2 8JE
- Brotherhood of Pursuits and Pastimes - city centre, LS1 6NU
- Toast Sports Bar - near train station, LS1 4JY
- All pubs on Otley Road, Headingley - take buses with numbers 22-28 from outside campus to this stop
Day 2: The second day of the Science Meeting will start at 09:00 on the Thursday and run until 12:00. We will provide a plant-based lunch for all attendees following the end of the meeting from 12:00 until 13:00.
- Hackathon (Thurs 13:00 to Friday 12:00)
Day 1: The first day of the UKCA 2026 Hackathon will start at 13:00 on Thursday (following lunch) and run until 17:00. Attendees are welcome to spend their evening exploring the city or join the committee on a trip to Northern Market.
Day 2: The second day of the Hacakathon will start at 08:30 on Friday and run until 12:00. We will not be providing lunch following the end of the Hackathon, but attendees are welcome to join the committee for lunch at the University Union.
Links for online participants
We are very happy for attendees to join in with both the Science Meeting and Hackathon remotely. Please see the schedule for all Teams links. The Science Meeting has separate links for each day, as does the Hackathon.
Information for presenters
- Oral presentations
Everyone has a 15 minute slot, which should include at least 2 minutes for questions (except for speakers in our first session who have a 20 minute slot). We have a busy schedule and the chairs will make sure we keep to time with the aid of a slightly aggressive bell!
Please upload your slides by the end of Tuesday 14th July. The screen is set up for widescreen presentations, and we would prefer powerpoint slides if possible (pdf also fine!). Please use this link to upload your slides - with your name as the filename.
- Poster presentations
We have a list of poster presentations - please check the schedule to see if you are on this.
The poster session will take place at the end of the day 1 (16:15 to 18:00); the posters will remain in the room for the morning coffee break on day 2. We will begin the poster session with a chance for everyone to briefly summarise their poster with 1 slide and 1 minute (so super brief!).
Please upload your one slide by the end of Tuesday 14th July using this link. We will combine all slides in the order listed in the schedule. Poster size anything up to A0 is fine and we would prefer portrait, if possible.
Hackathon information
For this year's Hackathon, we will be looking at output from recent runs of the UKESM2 prototype (ooooh, exciting!) with an aim to compare it against observations and perform a first-look evaluation of the new model version.
All of the attendees who expressed an interest in joining (either a 'yes' or a 'maybe') should have received an email from Dan Grosvenor with details on the Hackathon. In summary, as a prerequisite you'll need to have access to JASMIN and the ASCI group workspace where the UKESM output will be stored. A lot of us will be analysing the data on the JASMIN jupyterhub Notebook service; if you are interested in using some of our existing code, we recommend sorting out access to this service before the Hackathon.
If you are joining remotely you can find links for each day on the schedule.
Contact information
If you have any questions please email one of the committee members - we won't list the email addresses online so please see one of our previous emails.
