Wednesday 26 November 2025, London
Innovations in Search and Information Retrieval
Search Solutions is the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group’s
(BCS IRSG) annual event focused on practitioner issues in the arena of
search and information retrieval (IR). We bring together practitioners,
researchers, analysts and end users to discuss the latest developments
in the IR community and to share insights between research and practice.
The event consists of a Tutorial day (25 November) and a Conference day
(26 November), each of which has a separate registration.The conference
day includes presentations, panels and keynote talks by influential
industry leaders on novel and emerging applications in search and
information retrieval.
09:30 - 09:50 Registration and coffee
09:50 - 10:00 Introduction
We will then have a full day of talks and discussion. The detailed
programme will be announced soon but here is the list of confirmed
speakers so far:
* Alessandro Benedetti (Sease) “Search Quality Evaluation in the Era of
Large Language Models: RRE-Dataset Generator”
* Jon Brassey (TRIP) “Harnessing AI for Faster, Smarter Clinical
Decision Support: The Evolution of Trip Database”
* Gianna Cipponeri “Evaluating Citation Quality and Context Faithfulness
in Retrieval-Augmented Generation: A Product-Specific Framework”
* Mark Harwood (Ex Elastic Developer) “Plasticine Not Porcelain: Shaping
Embeddings Through Interactive Clustering”
* Orland Hoeber (University of Regina) “Support Human Intelligence – An
Alternative to Retrieval Augmented Generation in Academic Digital
Library Search”
* Marianne Lykke (Aalborg University) “Role of metadata and taxonomies
in professional contexts”
* Adam Roegiest (Zuva) “Information Retrieval Evaluation in the
Real-World: A Legal Tech Perspective”
* Cedric Ulmer (France Labs) “Adding GenAI to Datafari Community Edition
- what and why”
* Sean MacAvaney (University of Glasgow) “Re-thinking re-ranking”
16:30 - 17:15 PANEL SESSION
17:15 - 17:25 BCS SEARCH INDUSTRY AWARDS
17:25 - 17:30 Closing words
17:30 EVENING RECEPTION
LOCATION
Search Solutions is organised by the Information Retrieval Specialist
Group of the BCS (The Chartered Institute for IT) and ISKO
(International Society for Knowledge Organization), and is held at the
BCS Central London Office:
BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
Ground Floor
25 Copthall Avenue
London
EC2R 7BP
https://www.bcs.org/about-us/our-london-office-and-event-venue/
REGISTRATION
Registration fees (including VAT at 20%) for Search Solutions are as
follows:
* BCS / ISKO member rate: £92
* Non-member rate: £110
* Students: £80
Registration fees include lunch. Tea and coffee will also be available
throughout the day followed by a drinks reception in the evening.
Register here: https://IRSGSearchSolutions2025.eventbrite.co.uk
TUTORIAL DAY
Search Solutions also includes a Tutorial Programme on Tuesday, 25
November. A detailed programme will be announced in due course.
Tutorials are payable separately.
PAST EVENTS
Search Solutions has been held annually since 2007. For details of past
events please see:
https://www.bcs.org/membership-and-registrations/member-communities/information-retrieval-specialist-group/conferences-and-events/search-solutions/
