IEEE eScience 2026
AI-CAPWORK Workshop
AI Capability Uplift That Actually Works:
International Case Studies from Academia, Government, Industry, and Faith-based Organisations
Sharing real-world case studies of AI capability uplift, with attention to what works, what fails, and why.
Monday 28th September
Naples, Italy
AI tools, models, and workflows are evolving faster than most organisations can adapt to their people, processes, technology stacks, and cultures. Technical training alone (for example, learning a specific model or tool) rarely delivers lasting productivity gains unless it is embedded into real workflows, decision making, governance, leadership, and organisational culture.
This workshop examines what actually works in AI and data capability uplift programs—and what does not—through real world case studies from universities, government (at all levels), small and medium enterprises, the not-for-profit sector, and different religious congregations with examples spanning Australia, and Europe this workshop provides a truly international perspective.
The aims of this workshop will be to explore the gap between what leaders think their teams are doing with AI and what staff actually feel confident and supported to do. This will include the cultural and psychological conditions that make uplift efforts succeed or fail, the reusable lessons from building these programs across sectors so we stop reinventing the wheel, measure what matters, and better understand how the stories leaders and colleagues tell during AI transformation shape engagement, culture, and outcomes.
This workshop is suited to:
- Researchers and research software engineers leading AI and data-intensive eScience projects.
- Data, AI, governance, and digital transformation leaders in government, NGOs, and SMEs collaborating with research organisations.
- Practitioners and teams using, adopting, implementing, or building AI tools and capability uplift programs inside organisations.
- Leaders interested in the cultural, ethical, and institutional implications of AI adoption.
The workshop will include presentations, posters and discussion on topics including:
- Design and evaluation of AI/data capability uplift programs: wins, failures, unintended consequences, what to measure and why.
- AI adoption and workflow automation for high-impact eScience: using shared, linked, collaborative data assets, facilities, and open-source tools/ resources in real projects.
- Human readiness, AI governance, and trust: leadership, policy, and organisational conditions that enable safe and effective AI use and foster trust and productivity.
- Human–AI collaboration and leadership: understanding which tasks can be effectively delegated to AI systems and which require human judgement, responsibility, and meaning-making.
- Culture, narrative, and meaning-making in AI transformation: how organisations across industry, government, and mission-driven or faith-based institutions shape collective understanding and engagement with AI.
- Scaling what works: patterns, templates, and re-usable playbooks for capability uplift without “reinventing the wheel” in each new project
Date: 28th September 2026
Location: Room ISCHIA
| Time | Speaker | Session | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 AM | Georgia Atkinson and Carlos Munoz Novo | Introduction to the Workshop | 10 min |
| 09:10 AM | Georgia Atkinson | The AI Traineeship Programme: Building the next generation of work-ready data scientists | 20 min |
| 09:30 AM | Carlos Munoz Novo | Lead the Meaning, Not the Machine: AI Governance for Hesitant and Mission-Driven Organizations | 20 min |
| 09:50 AM | Nicholas Pittman and Derrick Ung | AI as Research Partner, Not Replacement: Design and Early Evaluation of a Seven-Workshop AI & Coding Uplift Program for the Public Sector (Pre-recorded presentation) |
20 min |
| 10:10 AM | Authors of accepted papers | Lightning Talks | 20 min |
| 10:30 AM | - | Poster Session | 30 min |
| 11:00 AM | - | Break | 30 min |
| 11:30 AM | All participants | Interactive Activity | 50 min |
| 12:20 PM | Georgia Atkinson and Carlos Munoz Novo | Wrap Up | 10 min |
The closing interactive session will be used to co-develop a simple, shared “AI Capability Uplift Playbook” for eScience partners.
Information for Accepted Papers
Authors of accepted works will be expected to present a poster at the workshop and give a 1- 2-minute presentation (lightning talk) to highlight their work.
Poster Information
Academic posters should be A0 in size. They should be portrait and only contain information that is directly linked to your accepted abstract. We do not expect posters to be submitted to EasyChair before the workshop.
Lightning Talk Information
We would like each invited paper to give a 1 - 2 minute presentation to advertise their work before the poster session. You may use a maximum of 2 slides. If more slides are sent, only the first two will be used.Important Dates
- Slide submissions: Friday 11th September
- Email to: nicd@newcastle.ac.uk with the email heading "AI Capability Uplift Slides: Submission XXX" where XXX is the submission ID for your EasyChair submission
Call for Papers
We are looking for anyone interested in the above topics in the "What will the workshop involve?" section to submit an extended abstract (2 - 4 pages) to the workshop, which is part of the IEEE eScience conference.
Authors of accepted works will be expected to present a poster at the workshop and give a 1-2-minute presentation to highlight their work.
Authors should use the EasyChair submission web page to submit their extended abstracts. Authors should select "make a new submission" and then select the track "AI Capability Uplift That Actually Works: International Case Studies from Academia, Government, Industry, and Faith-based Organisations".
All submitted extended abstracts will undergo single-blind peer review by two committee members.
Accepted, camera-ready extended abstracts will be submitted to IEEE for inclusion in the eScience 2026 workshop proceedings, in accordance with the conference formatting guidelines.Important Dates
- Paper submission: 18th May 2026 8th June 2026. Now extended to 20th July 2026!
- Notification of acceptance: 29th June 2026 (1st round) and 27th July 2026 (2nd round)
- Camera-ready due: 7th August 2026
- Submission Link
Programme Committee
- Georgia Atkinson (Co-Organiser), Senior Data Scientist, National Innovation Centre for Data, United Kingdom.
- Rhetta Chappell (Co-Organiser), Director of Data Linkage, Queensland Health, Australia.
- Carlos Muñoz Novo (Co-Organiser), Partner at THE WAY OVER. AI governance & Leadership strategist
- Nicholas Pittman (Co-Organiser), Data Analyst, Griffith Data Trust, Griffith University, Australia.
- Derrick Ung (Co-Organiser), Data Analyst, Griffith Data Trust, Griffith University, Australia.