• 09:30 - 16:30
• Cambridge University Engineering Department

Insights from the Centre for Landscape Regeneration

This conference shares insights from our multi-year study into the future of UK landscapes, focusing on the Fens, the Cairngorms, and the Lake District. This work brings together research on the intersections between nature, climate, local economies, and communities to discuss how findings can be applied on the ground. Through this work, we aim to provide the knowledge needed to make a tangible difference to these iconic landscapes. 

Funded by UKRI NERC, the project aims to discuss how the evidence and insights gathered so far can be used to inform policy and action.

The day features a wide range of perspectives, from the researchers and partner organisations who have shaped our work, to the policymakers, land managers, and members of the public who can put it into practice.  

• Talks & Panel Discussions: Presentations on our latest findings followed by Q&A sessions to discuss their implications.
• Research Posters: An opportunity to engage directly with the researchers and explore their work.
• Community Art Exhibition: A showcase of work from local artists reflecting the human connection to these landscapes.
• Collaborative Conversations: Time to discuss how this ongoing research can best serve the needs of those managing and living in the British countryside.

• 17:30 - 18:30
• A V Hill Lecture Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre, Cambridge

Our behaviour is characteristically organized in a hierarchical structure of goals and subgoals, with many fragments of behaviour contributing to an everyday activity such as making breakfast or attending a lecture.  Such goal-directed structures are often impaired following major damage to the frontal lobes of the brain.  I shall describe a core discovery of human brain imaging – a nine-patch network recruited for addressing a very broad range of cognitive challenges, based in frontal cortex but with additional components elsewhere.  This network is strongly activated by a standard test of “fluid intelligence”, known to predict success in all kinds of activities and presumably requiring mental operations of very widespread importance.  From human brain imaging, I shall move on to electrophysiology in the behaving monkey.  In a network of frontal lobe regions, putatively homologous to regions of the human network, I shall show encoding of core components of a goal-directed plan – current state, goal, component moves and hierarchy.  Damage to this network, I suggest, underlies the broad behavioural impairment that can follow frontal lobe damage.