HEICCAM Network Annual Assembly,

🗓 17th & 18th Nov 2022  📍 Central London

We held our second Annual Assembly in London on November 17-18th – bringing the network members, project partners and stakeholders together in person for the first time!

The first day of the assembly was focused on advancing the research tasks through valuable advice from and discussion with Ed Wealand, Chair of CIBSE’s Air Quality Working Group. It was agreed that there was a real need for a protocol on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring to inform practitioners and policymakers. The interdisciplinary nature of HEICCAM makes it well suited for producing such a protocol that needs to take a multitude of perspectives into account. It was also decided that a survey on occupant behaviours around ventilation and energy adaptations should be created to provide a valuable primary data source in a research area where evidence collection has so far been sparse.

The second day of the assembly aimed to provide a space for the HEICCAM Working Groups to come together in person and brainstorm on the objectives, audience, and format of the final Working Group report. We were joined by the Clean Air Programme’s Clean Air Champions Suzanne Bartington and Gary Fuller, as well as several representatives from stakeholder and project partner organizations, who all provided extremely valuable feedback and fresh ideas and perspectives on the work of our Working Groups. The coming year will see the publication of our final Working Group report as well as short, concise and targeted publications aimed at different audiences relevant to HEICCAM’s work.

Beyond a very productive two days of working sessions and discussions, we truly enjoyed finally meeting in person and exchanging ideas over coffee, biscuits and a group dinner – networking at its finest!

Computer Models for Research – An Introduction to Bayesian Calibration,

🗓 31 Oct 2022  ⏰ 14:00-17:00  📍 Online

This webinar showed participants how to use a Bayesian calibration approach in R to improve the accuracy of prediction in computer models. Across multiple disciplines, computer models have become vitals tools for research. Computer models enable researchers to run simulation-based experiments, to make predictions under different scenarios and to assess the impact of policies. A common thread amongst the various modelling approaches is the presence of uncertainty. The quantification and reduction of uncertainty can result in more accurate predictions and, thus, more robust decision-making.

This webinar provided an introduction to the Bayesian calibration of computer models using R. The session included:

– A brief description of Bayes’ Theorem and Bayesian calibration theory

– An introduction to the powerful R package rstan and its basic functionality

– A step-by-step demonstration of Bayesian calibration using a simple model

Novel sensors and digital science for improved exposure metrics,

🗓 7 Oct 2022  ⏰ 10:00-13:00

This free HEICCAM online seminar introduced R statistical software to Early Career Researchers interested in air quality, including mapping applications.

The first part of the seminar introduced R statistical software to air quality researchers. We used a small sample of measurements collected in kitchens of volunteers to demonstrate how we can extract useful information to inform indoor air quality modelling studies. In the second part, the R environment was used to map modelled indoor and outdoor air pollution concentrations across different spatial resolutions, to estimate exposure under a range of environmental and housing policy scenarios. This allows for the spatial distribution of air pollution exposure to be evaluated, which may be implicated in health inequalities.

Annual Assembly,

🗓 22-23 Nov 2021

Our 2021 annual assembly brought together multi-disciplinary senior and early-career researchers, project partners and members of our advisory board to discuss challenges associated with indoor and outdoor air quality under net zero. The assembly was run online for two-morning sessions on 22-23 November 2021 and was attended by ~40 participants.

On Monday 22nd November, the event started with introductions to project aims by project PI/Co-Is, followed by a mapping of our project partners, presentations by four early-career researchers, followed by an online networking session. We then explored and discussed perspectives from project partners in Hoare Lea, UK Health Security Agency (UK HSA) and the National Health Services (NHS) on net-zero and health needs.

On Tuesday 23rd November, we held a moderated discussion on home energy efficiency and air quality under net-zero, discussing current state-of-the-art knowledge on home energy efficiency, air pollution monitoring from outdoor and indoor perspectives and health implications and solutions.  The discussion included brief 1-slide presentations from a number of project investigators and an interactive debate. The event was successful and currently, the project team is working on summarising the key findings from the assembly.

If you would like to request access to the meeting recordings or presentations, please mail us at info@heiccam.org. The assembly presentation and recordings will be made available after permissions are requested. If you have any feedback on the annual assembly, please send us your thoughts at info@heiccam.org and we will try to implement your suggestions in the next assembly and network events.

Clean Air Day event,

🗓 June 17 2021, 1-2 pm BST

UK Clean Air Day, coordinated by Global Action Plan, is an award-winning annual campaign. It works to improve public understanding of air pollution both indoors and outdoors and to build awareness of how air pollution affects our health. 

To celebrate Clean Air Day, we held a joint-webinar event on science communication and public engagement with other SPF clean air networks.