Seedcorn projects

Dr Zoe Lee, Reader in Marketing at Cardiff Business School, addresses a critical gap between ambition and reality in how businesses adopt AI responsibly.

Despite 87% of managers identifying Responsible AI as a strategic priority, only 15% feel equipped to implement it, and 46% of consumers already trust brands less when AI replaces human interaction.

‘Bridging the Gap: Responsible AI and Consumer Trust in AI-enabled Marketing’ used expert interviews, social media analysis, and experimental studies to develop a new framework to embed principles like transparency, fairness, and accountability directly into marketing practice.

The project brings together a new strategic collaboration across Cardiff University, Cranfield University, the University of East Anglia, and Northumbria University. Expected outcomes include informing ethical AI policy and industry practice, generating pilot data for larger UKRI, ESRC, and Nuffield Foundation funding bids, and strengthening Cardiff's leadership in safe and responsible AI and creative technologies.

Liz Merrifield, Information and Research Governance Lead at Wales Gene Park and her team will use Seedcorn funding in helping to establish the CD-HI Network, a new pan-Wales initiative responding to a critical gap in how digital healthcare innovation is understood, communicated, and put into practice.

Digital healthcare innovation is accelerating rapidly, yet understanding how to responsibly access, govern, and use health data in real-world settings remains fragmented and difficult to navigate. This creates a significant opportunity to connect people, perspectives, and practical experience across research, practice, policy, and the public.

The CD-HI Network responds by convening a focused, pan-Wales community, bringing together researchers, clinicians, data, governance and policy experts, and patient and public partners as equal contributors. Through focused workshops, story-led explainers, real-world case studies, and a co-produced digital knowledge hub, the network aims to inspire a shared vision for digital healthcare innovation in Wales, enable responsible and trusted use of health data, and grow a visible, connected, and enduring national community, with reach well beyond academia.

Dr You Zhou, who leads the Systems Medicine Lab at the Systems Immunity University Research Institute and the Division of Infection & Immunity at Cardiff University, aims to develop a cloud-based AI platform to help researchers identify existing drugs that could be repurposed to treat complex diseases.

As biomedical datasets continue to grow rapidly, there is an increasing need for AI tools that can translate complex data into new therapeutic opportunities more efficiently. The project builds on previous AI-driven drug repurposing work in fatty liver disease, where several top-ranked drug predictions have already shown promising validation results.

The platform will bring together expertise in bioinformatics, clinical science, and data science, and will include an international pilot collaboration with researchers at the Girona Biomedical Research Institute in Spain. Together, the project aims to support data-driven healthcare research and accelerate innovation in precision medicine.

Dr Neetesh Saxena, Reader in the School of Computer Science and Informatics at Cardiff University, whose project investigates a critical and underexplored area at the intersection of cybersecurity and vehicle forensics.

Modern vehicles generate vast amounts of data through their infotainment systems, yet how this data varies across manufacturers and models, and what security vulnerabilities and privacy risks this creates, is not well understood. This gap limits the accuracy, reliability, and reproducibility of forensic investigations into vehicle-generated data.

This project addresses this directly by developing stronger data-driven analytics and forensic methods for identifying patterns in vehicle-generated data. Activities include procurement and analysis of infotainment modules, a bespoke workshop at Cardiff University, and international collaboration and knowledge exchange, together building the foundations for more robust and reproducible vehicle forensic investigations.

Dr Amir Javed, Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Informatics at Cardiff University, is receiving Seedcorn funding to support two complementary projects advancing cybersecurity, AI, and global research collaboration.

The first project enhances Cardiff's IoT Security Lab by integrating a smart coffee machine into an existing IoT testbed, creating a hands-on environment for penetration testing, firmware analysis, and network security research. This builds lab capability and industry relevance, generates datasets for testing and validating new ideas, and strengthens the foundation for future grant applications.

The second project establishes a UK–India Collaboration Initiative, bringing together academic, industry, and policy stakeholders from institutions including MIT Pune, BVP Pune, the Indian School of Business, and the Data Security Council of India. Through workshops, joint roadmaps, and partnership development, the initiative will define shared research themes, support joint MSc projects and Capture the Flag competitions, and position collaborators for international funding bids through UKRI and Indo-UK schemes.

Together, the two projects strengthen Cardiff's leadership in safe and responsible AI, build an enduring UK–India cybersecurity ecosystem, and create new pathways for student mobility, PhD development, and research impact

Dr Eirini Anthi and Dr Lowri Williams are both Lecturers in the School of Computer Science and Informatics at Cardiff University. Their project is building lasting joint capability in understanding, communicating, and demonstrating AI risk, seeding a major international research collaboration.

AI-enabled systems in transport, infrastructure, and critical environments carry risks that are invisible to engineers, policymakers, and operators. Adversarial attacks, distributional drift, and unexplainable model failures are not theoretical; they happen in deployed systems today, yet stakeholders rarely have the tools to see them coming.

Over 6 weeks, the team will undertake a structured knowledge exchange sprint with Athens' Athena Research Centre, pairing Cardiff's expertise in adversarial machine learning and cyber defence with Athena's applied AI and systems knowledge. Together they will co-design an AI Risk Observatory Kit, a portable, reusable demonstrator that translates complex AI risks into accessible insights for industry, policymakers, and funders, validated with National Highways for AI-enabled transport.

The collaboration is a deliberate first step toward a joint Horizon Europe bid, with outcomes including a formalised Cardiff–Athena partnership, a Horizon Europe proposal pipeline, and engagement with students and the Cyber Innovation Hub throughout.

Dr Yipeng Qin, Senior Lecturer and Computer Vision Research Group Lead in the School of Computational and Mathematical Sciences at Cardiff University, will build a UK research partnership to develop next-generation motion capture systems that work outside the lab.

Traditional motion capture requires controlled environments, limiting how human movement can be studied at scale in the real world. Understanding human behaviour in real-world conditions remains a significant challenge, one with wide-reaching implications for fields from healthcare and sport to animation, extended reality, and the creative industries.

This project brings together expertise in computer vision, machine learning, and animation to design a new framework for scalable, data-driven motion capture "in the wild". Working with partners at the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA), Cardiff University, and Bournemouth University. The collaboration will produce a joint research roadmap for future grant applications and lay the foundations for expansion into industry, including XR and the creative sectors.

Dr Abhishek Kundu, Senior Lecturer in the Computational Mechanics and Engineering AI research group at Cardiff School of Engineering, will establish a strategic industry partnership to advance autonomous structural monitoring in support of net-zero emissions targets.

Safety-critical structures in the aerospace and renewables sectors, both of which rely heavily on laminated composites to enhance performance and reduce emissions, require continuous in-service monitoring to avoid catastrophic failures, reduce maintenance costs, and improve

reliability. Current inspection methods are costly and time-intensive, creating a significant bottleneck in the transition to smarter, more sustainable lifecycle management of ageing structures.

This project partners Cardiff University with Testia, an Airbus Group company, to deploy CyberSHM technology, using telemetric acousto-ultrasonic techniques to create digital equivalents of critical structural components for prognostics and predictive maintenance. Joint meetings and pilot case studies will consolidate a long-term research partnership, supported by student placements and a shared commercialisation roadmap. Attendance at EWSHM 2026, the largest structural health monitoring conference in Europe, will showcase Cardiff's international research leadership, while a joint IP agreement and CyberSHM interest group will position the technology for successful adoption across the industrial sector.