Everyone deserves to breathe clean air, especially the young and those most vulnerable.

The UKRI Clean Air SPF is a unique £42.5m research programme bringing together government, public sector research establishments, universities and industry . The initial years of the two waves of this far-reaching interdisciplinary research programme have seen great strides towards tackling the silent but deadly threat of air pollution.

Over the next four years, teams from climate, science and health sectors will be identifying practical and usable solutions to air pollution to help policy makers and business protect health; and work towards a cleaner economy.

This includes projects to understand current and future air pollution, along with networks that join together researchers and industry.

In our next step researchers will be investigating the air pollution within our homes and we look forward to more research development from the funded consortia and the Met Office calls.

The UKRI Clean Air SPF really is a breath of fresh air!

The SPF Clean Air Champions: Professor Sir Stephen Holgate; Dr Jenny Baverstock; Dr Gary Fuller

We are pleased to announce the following activities:

The Six SPF Networks and SAQN Information as follows:

Communicating Clean Air Research- https://www.eventbrite.com/e/communicating-clean-air-research-tickets-156651792729 17 June 2021 12.00-13.00

As part of Clean Air Day 2021, we ask how the research community can ‘translate’ air quality science into messaging, media stories and social media campaigns that cut through to the public, and enable them to join the conversation.

Clean Air Day is focused on improving public understanding of air pollution and building awareness of how air pollution impacts our health. This event is organised jointly by the six SPF-Clean Air funded air quality networks.

The event will be hosted by Prof Cath Noakes, Professor of Environmental Engineering for Buildings at the University of Leeds.

Speakers as follows:

  • Charlotte Zamboni, Marketing Director, Global Action Plan – will help us to understand how public communication campaigns work and reveal insights from GAP on how to craft messaging that cuts through.
  • Lukasz Walasek, University of Warwick (Co-Lead of CleanAir4V Work Package on Behaviour Interventions for Vulnerable Groups): Behavioural insights for protecting children against air pollution.

Insights from behavioural sciences continue to be implemented in policies concerning various aspects of our health and wellbeing. Approaches built on the insights from psychology and economics offer new and exciting methods for improving our daily lives without restricting people’s freedoms. In this presentation, I will introduce key principles of behavioural change and describe how those can be turned into effective interventions in the context of air pollution. I will introduce examples from existing research showing behavioural science application for reducing exposure to indoor air pollution among children.

  • Mike Morrison, Michigan State University – helped to revolutionise the academic poster and is now focused on how to ‘speed up’ science and make it user friendly. Some great advice for maximising your impact on Twitter as well!

There will be plenty of time for discussion and to explore ideas with the panel

Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, SPF Clean Air Champion will be working with the Global Action Plan and the Westminster Commission for Road Air Quality Clean Air Day events | Freedom to breathe
The TRANSITION Clean Air Network

In partnership with the University of Birmingham Institute of Global Innovation will convene a special Clean Air Day webinar event to be held at 18:00-19:00 on 17 June 2021. The event (open to all) is titled: ‘What do we know about in-vehicle air quality? Understanding air quality inside buses, trains, automobiles, and across active travel in the UK.’ The webinar will feature two speaker panels and live polling to facilitate active audience participation. The first panel session will focus upon in-vehicle air pollution exposure across different land transport modes while the second session will focus upon mechanisms and policy actions to reduce in-vehicle air pollution. It aims to attract a broad audience from the transport, mobility and air quality sectors, and those interested in their impacts on air quality. Links and event registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-do-we-know-about-in-vehicle-air-quality-tickets-155802049123

Look out for future events!

Indoor air quality and health under path to net-zero, June-July 2021, 3-4pm (TBC)

The joint HEICCAM-HPRU webinar and panel discussion will bring together researchers as well as stakeholders to explore:

  • beneficial and detrimental impacts of the path to net zero on the health of dwelling occupants
  • current key challenges in understanding, tracking and prediction of health impacts
  • role of comprehensive indoor air quality monitoring, measurements and modelling in addressing health impacts

Indoor air quality and health under the path to Net Zero, Registration, Wed 30 Jun 2021 at 15:00 | Eventbrite

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