Language, Speech, and AI: An Online Forensics Summer School
Welcome to the annual FACTOR summer school. Each even year (2026, 2028, etc.) is an online partial rerun of the previous, in-person, odd-numbered year (2025, 2027, etc.). In different words, if you attended the 2025 Summer School, you will find that we recap some of that same basic concepts, but also, because things in this field are moving so quickly, we introduce some new content and topics.
What might that new content be?
This year’s particular theme will be protection, privacy, and proactive synthesis.
See the timetable below for a little bit more insight into that.
Registration
The fee for the FACTOR Summer School 2026 is £40. This includes all sessions across both days and access to all associated material.
Tickets will go on sale soon. Please note that last year, tickets sold out several weeks before the event.
FACTOR Summer School 2026 is aimed at complete beginners. You do not need any knowledge of forensic linguistics or forensic speech science to take part. However, you do need to be aged 16 or above.
Getting here
That’s the great thing – you don’t need to. In even years, the Summer School runs on Teams. You could always just come to Lancaster anyway because it’s beautiful and worth the trip, but if you’re right round the globe, on a budget, and/or fitting this round a busy schedule, we’ve got you covered.
Schedule
Day 01 – Thu 11th Jun 2026
| TIME | DURATION | EVENT | HOST(S)/SPEAKER(S) |
| 0930-0945 | 15m | Welcome, housekeeping | CH |
| 0945-1030 | 45m | Session 1: Introduction to forensic speech science | JL |
| 1030-1045 | 15m | Break | – |
| 1045-1130 | 45m | Session 2: Text-to-speech versus voice conversion | GB |
| 1130-1145 | 15m | Q&A | JL & GB |
| 1145-1245 | 60m | Lunch | – |
| 1245-1330 | 45m | Session 3: Perception – how are we spotting deepfakes? | JL |
| 1330-1345 | 15m | Break | – |
| 1345-1430 | 45m | Session 4: Can AI protect our privacy? | GB |
| 1430-1445 | 15m | Q&A | JL & GB |
Day 02 – Fri 12th Jun 2026
| TIME | EVENT | PLACE | HOST(S)/SPEAKER(S) |
| 0930-0945 | 15m | Welcome back | CH |
| 0945-1030 | 45m | Session 5: Introduction to authorship analysis | CH |
| 1030-1045 | 15m | Break | – |
| 1045-1130 | 45m | Session 6: Introduction to authorship synthesis | CH |
| 1130-1145 | 15m | Q&A | CH |
| 1145-1245 | 60m | Lunch | – |
| 1245-1330 | 45m | Session 7: Privacy enhancing technologies (PETs): protecting our voices and words | GB |
| 1330-1345 | 15m | Break | – |
| 1345-1430 | 45m | Session 8: PET results | CH |
| 1430-1445 | 15m | Q&A, goodbye | ALL |