What if some of the most important discoveries left to make are hidden beneath our feet?

In this episode of RGS Presents: The Future of Exploration, cave explorer and microbiologist Professor Hazel Barton joins host Matt Pycroft to explore the world underground.

From unexplored cave systems in Borneo and Mexico to microscopic life living in extreme environments, Hazel reveals how exploration can begin with something that doesn’t make sense. A rope that mysteriously lost its strength led to new questions about cave formation. Microbes found around mineral deposits opened up possibilities for capturing carbon and creating new materials, and ancient animal remains discovered while following the flow of air helped reveal a lost cave entrance and a different landscape from 10,000 years ago. For Hazel, this is what exploration is really about, following the clues, noticing anomalies and asking better questions.

The conversation also asks what exploration looks like in the age of AI and robotics. Can a machine map a cave more efficiently than a human? Are curiosity, intuition and human judgement qualities that technology can ever truly reproduce? Hazel also challenges the image of the lone heroic explorer. Modern exploration is increasingly a team effort, bringing together scientists, mappers, expedition teams and local expertise to generate knowledge that can help tackle some of society’s biggest challenges.

Could you discover something nobody else on Earth has ever seen without leaving your laptop?

In this episode of RGS Presents: The Future of Exploration, host Matt Pycroft speaks with Dr Prem Gill, a researcher at the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey, who studies Antarctic seals using satellite imagery and cutting-edgetechnology. By spotting seal colonies from space and using AI to analyse vast amounts of data, Prem is helping scientists understand how Antarctica is changing, and what those changes mean for the Southern Ocean, climate and the wider planet.

But this is also a conversation about what it means to be an explorer today. Prem sees exploration as something much more universal based in curiosity, asking questions, discovering something new and finding ways to share what we learn. The conversation explores how satellites, remote sensing and AI are transforming scientific discovery, while showing why boots-on-the-ground fieldwork still matters.

Prem also reflects on diversity in polar science, the history of Antarctic exploration, and how new technologies could open up opportunities for people who might never think of themselves as explorers.

In this episode of RGS Presents: The Future of Exploration, urban exploration pioneer Max Leonard challenges our ideas about where exploration happens, who gets to do it, and what discovery can mean in a world that has already been mapped and photographed from almost every angle.

From forgotten railway tunnels and abandoned power stations to hidden infrastructure beneath our cities, Max reveals the extraordinary worlds that exist in places we pass every day. He argues that exploration doesn’t mean travelling further or climbing higher, it simply means looking differently.

The conversation also raises difficult questions. Who owns these spaces? Who has the right to explore them? Can trespassing ever create public value? And when does documenting a hidden place help preserve it or put it at risk?

For Max, urban exploration is ultimately about curiosity and imagination, seeing familiar places in new ways and asking what remains hidden in a world that can seem completely known. At a time when so much of our planet is mapped, monitored and documented, this episode asks whether exploration is really running out of places to go, or whether we simply need to learn how to look more closely.