Three presentations will be given drawing from the £2.5m value ALPACA and ALPACA Plus research programmes conducted as two International Joint Industry projects (JIPs) over 2017-22 that advanced the understanding of Chalk and developed new, greatly improved, driven pile design methods for chalk sites. The JIPs and their outcomes are revolutionising the approach the offshore industry is taking to site investigations and driven pile design for several current multi-£bn Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) developments. The research, which is equally applicable to optimising the design of port, bridge and other onshore infrastructure developments, has implications for most other geomaterials. It has been published widely and one of the 1^st papers (by Vinck et al., 2023 in Geotechnique) from the research won the 2022 BGA Medal

Richard Jardine is College Proconsul and Professor of Geomechanics at Imperial College London, where he has been a staff member since 1981. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the City and Guilds Institute. His research focuses principally on advanced soil characterisation, field instrumentation, offshore geotechnics, geohazards and transport geotechnics. He has also worked recently with others on climate change impact in Siberia and continues to work with colleagues in the Netherlands on flood defence geotechnics.

Richard has led several large recent projects related to advanced laboratory research and offshore foundation design for wind-energy projects. His recent work includes roles in the PISA and PAGE Joint Industry projects and leading the ALPACA project into multiscale axial, lateral and cyclic response of offshore piles driven in Chalk, as well as other research with colleagues in the UK, Australia, Belgium, China, France and Norway. Richard also provides consulting advice to several current offshore wind projects in the UK, Europe, the Taiwan Strait and Japan. He has presented multiple public lectures in recent years, including the 2016 Rankine Lecture and the ISSMGE McClelland Honours Lecture in 2023, as well keynotes at the BGA 2018 Chalk Conference and several other recent international events.

Dr Ken Vinck is a Lecturer in Geotechnics at Imperial College London. With seven years invested in geotechnical practice, he advanced his studies at Imperial, securing both an MSc and a PhD. After his doctoral achievements, Dr Vinck dedicated a year at Imperial as a post-doctoral researcher, subsequently joining as a Lecturer in 2022. At the heart of his research is a passion for experimental geotechnics, with a pronounced focus on advanced laboratory testing and site characterisation — all aimed at enhancing offshore foundation system designs. His roles include key contributions to the lab testing components of the ALPACA project for which he was awarded the BGA medal in 2022.

Dr Róisín Buckley is an academic at the University of Glasgow and a Chartered Civil Engineer. Her main research field is experimental geotechnics with a particular focus on field testing and site characterisation to support the design of offshore structures. Her recent roles include key contributions to the field testing components of the ALPACA and PICASO projects and as Principal Investigator of the EPSRC-funded SOURCE project, which aims to reduce the uncertainty associated with the characterisation of key input parameters for use in offshore foundation design methods. She was a recipient of the ICE David Hislop Award in 2019 and 2021 and the BGA medal in 2022 and recently delivered a keynote address at the 2023 SUT offshore site investigation and geotechnics conference. She is a current member of the Géotechnique Advisory Panel and is a Visiting Fellow in Engineering at the University of Oxford.