BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Using AI to Accelerate Evidence Synthesis and Decision Support to Save Biodiversity - Alec Christie\, Henslow Research Fellow\, Downing Coll ege DTSTART:20240426T120000Z DTEND:20240426T130000Z UID:TALK213064@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:114742 DESCRIPTION:\nConsider a planner laying a new train line through ecologica lly sensitive areas. They need to balance economic benefits with ecologica l damage and think through mitigations such as fencing\, animal overpasses or habitat compensation areas\, each of which have costs. To maximise ben efits and reduce costs\, such decisions must be informed by prior research knowledge. However\, scientific evidence is difficult to find\, synthesis e and assess. The Conservation Evidence (www.conservationevidence.com) has manually screened over 1.5M papers in 17 languages\, so far distilled to 8\,636 relevant studies that test 3\,690 conservation actions for 24 speci es groups\, habitats and other conservation issues. However\, the laboriou s process of evidence gathering and synthesis means we can only add a few hundred studies per year\, whilst the rate of evidence generation is incre asing each year. In this talk\, I'll explain how we are planning to accele rate the evidence synthesis pipeline and improve decision support using La rge Language Models to ensure future conservation action is informed by sc ientific research.\n\nBio:\n\nAlec is a Henslow Research Fellow at Downing College Cambridge and works with the Conservation Evidence group in the D epartment of Zoology and Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI). He did h is PhD in Zoology in the same group in 2017 and before that he studied for a BSc in Marine Biology at the University of St Andrews. His work has foc used on understanding the gaps and biases in the evidence for biodiversity conservation and improving decision support to enable more evidence-based conservation. LOCATION:FW11\, William Gates Building. Zoom link: https://cl-cam-ac-uk.zo om.us/j/4361570789?pwd=Nkl2T3ZLaTZwRm05bzRTOUUxY3Q4QT09&\;from=addon END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR