STFC Hartree Centre
Sci-Tech Daresbury, Keckwick, Daresbury, Warrington
WA4 4AD
Registration
Registration will be via TicketTailor: https://buytickets.at/hpcsig/1811037
Please note, that we cannot guarantee entry to this event if you have not pre-registered.
Key deadlines
Call for contributions: Tuesday 30 September 2025Registration for in-person attendance: Monday 13 October- Registration for online participation: Monday 20 October
Venue Information and Accessibility
Address: The Hartree Centre STFC Laboratory Sci-Tech Daresbury Warrington, Daresbury, Warrington WA4 4AD
Further contact details for Hartree can be found here: https://www.hartree.stfc.ac.uk/contact-us/
What3words – ///icon.dishes.churn
Accessibility information: details to follow.
Programme
Day 1: Wednesday 22nd October Afternoon
| 12:00 | Day 1 Start: Arrive, Network, Lunch |
| 13:00 | Welcome and Chair’s Business |
| 13:30 | Opening Session with Hartree Welcome from Hartree Mark Fellows and Ed Taylor
Introduction to Hartree
Infrastructure Resiliency at the Daresbury SCC
The Critical Path to Compute: Deploying Coombs |
| 14:00 | Research data movement: operator perspectives Led by: Piper Fowler-Wright and Elaine Ho, The Rosalind Franklin Institute Supported by: James C. Womack, Bristol Centre for Supercomputing, University of Bristol |
| 14:30 | Refreshment break |
| 15:00 | Lightning talks (5 minutes each)
|
| 15:30 | An Update on High Performance Computing at the University of Southampton Aaron Parsons, University of Southampton |
| 15:55 | Attaching enterprise class VMs to CLOS network leaf switches from a centralised cluster Jonathan Churchill, STFC RAL |
| 16:20 | Testing Virtualised MIG backed GPUs on our HPC Sam Gallop, Norwich Bioscience Institute (online) |
| 16:45 | Day 1 Close: Notices, Network, Socialise |
Optional social evening
On 22nd October there is a option for meeting at The Waterside in Warrington from 6pm
Address: 1430 Park Boulevard, Centre Park Square, Warrington, Cheshire, WA1 1PR
Website: https://www.greeneking.co.uk/pubs/cheshire/waterside
Day 2: Thursday 23rd October Morning
| 09:00 | Day 2 Start: Arrive, Network, Refreshments |
| 09:30 |
Dr Stefano Mensa – Advanced Computing and Emerging Technologies Lead, Hartree Centre
|
| 10:00 | The History of Computing at Daresbury Laboratory Rob Allan, STFC Hartree Centre |
| 10:20 | Completely powering off a 38MW data centre – what could possibly go wrong… Paul Clark, EPCC |
| 10:45 | Assemble for Hartree Tours |
| 11:00 | Hartree Tours
Tour 1: Campus Technology Hub (CTH) – Introduction to Incubation @ STFC Return for final session at 11:45 |
| 11:45 | Federated Access Management for UK DRIs: Building a Community of Practice Gwen Dawes, University of Cambridge (online) |
| 12:15 | Chairs notices |
| 13:30 | Day 2 Close: Network, Lunch, Depart |
Optional half-day workshop on the UKRI Federated AI Application Container Platform/Registry project
Day 2: Thursday 23rd October Afternoon
Agenda (13:30-16:15)
| 13:30 | Project Introduction & Work Packages
Chris Edsall – University of Cambridge |
| 14:00 |
Running AI Containers on Kubernetes – Demo
Silvia Ramos – University College London
|
| 14:30 | Case Study: Container portability from NVIDIA to Intel GPUs (on Dawn) Sara Veneziale – Imperial College London |
| 15:00 | Coffee & Breakouts: Participant-Sourced Questions on Work Packages
Participants at tables draft ~3-4 questions from each table for the fishbowl panel |
| 15:30 | Fishbowl Panel |
| 16:00 | Closing Remarks & Next Steps |
Tours
On Day 2 there will be a choice of two tours. Sign ups for these will be on Day 1.
Tour 1: Campus Technology Hub (CTH) – Introduction to Incubation @ STFC
- Prototyping: How we can help to prototype your product using AM,VR-AR
- Digital support: Visualise your product in VR/AR, use our 5G platform to test and visualise data connection
- Facilities: Use the CTH space to work on your product and service with labs, electronic lab, CAD suite
- Finance: Access to finance via STFC grant, INNOVATE UK grant and regional financial support
- The Business Engagement Team is “your best BET” for growing your business.
Tour 2: Visualisation tour: Hartree Centre Visualisation Demos
- The Hartree Centre visualisation team offers powerful visualisation capabilities aimed at transforming raw data into intuitive, interactive, and comprehensible forms. These demos showcase how immersive visualisation, VR/AR, and advanced computational techniques are used across multiple industries—from healthcare to design and beyond.
Hotels
- Travelodge Warrington
- Warrington Central North hotel(Premier Inn)
- Premier Inn Runcorn Hotel
- Village Hotel Warrington | Hotel In Warrington | Pool, Gym & Pub (village-hotels.co.uk)
We recommend hotels in Warrington if you would like to join us for the social on Wednesday evening at The Waterside.
Directions
- By road: Daresbury Laboratory is 5 miles south west of Warrington and 5 miles east of Runcorn, immediately to the west of the A56 near the village of Daresbury. It is located 1 mile down the A56 from junction 11 of the M56 motorway, which connects to the national motorway network via the M6 (6 miles east).
- By Air: Manchester and Liverpool international airports are both located within a thirty minute drive of Daresbury Laboratory. Taxis are available from outside the main arrivals hall at both airports. It is also possible to travel by train from both airports to stations in Warrington and Runcorn.
- By train: There are frequent inter-city train services to both Runcorn and Warrington Bank Quay stations. There are also local services from Warrington Central. Details may be obtained from any British Rail enquiry office. Local enquiry offices are at Liverpool and Warrington.
- By taxi: From the train station in Warrington it is about a 15 minute journey to the laboratory.
- By bus: Three bus services run to the Daresbury laboratory campus. Timetables below are for guidance only, please check for any updates.
- 200 Runcorn Station – Murdishaw – Runcorn Employment Sites timetable – https://www3.halton.gov.uk/Pages/publictransport/pdf/BusTimetables/Timetable200.pdf
- X30 Warrington – Halton Lea – Chester via Daresbury – Beechwood – Sutton Weaver – Frodsham. – http://www.stfc.ac.uk/files/x30-arriva/
- 62A Warrington Bus Station -Chester Rd- Daresbury Expressway-Keckwick Lane turning at Sci-Tech, then as the 62 route to Widnes. – https://www3.halton.gov.uk/Pages/publictransport/pdf/BusTimetables/Timetable6262ANEW.pdf
Car Parking
For attendees who have requested a parking permit as part of their ticket. Please drive into the Hartree Car Park, press the intercom button and state their name. Security have the list of attendees and will let them in. On the map (below), once cars approach the campus they will be travelling down Keckwick Lane from the top of the map, so the Hartree car park will be on the right.
