A consortium of universities and research institutions, led by Trinomics from The Netherlands, has won a €6,7 million EU-funded project to actively engage European citizens in six countries to research their personal impact on air quality and carbon emissions in their cities. Thousands of people across Europe will be invited to share their views on how to reduce air pollution and improve related public health in six pilot cities. Residents will use a specially created game on their smartphones, tablets and laptops to suggest how their home cities should develop in the future. The result will be directly translated into improved city policies.
The four-year CLAiR-City project, funded through the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, features 16 research partners including the pilot cities of Bristol (UK); Amsterdam (NL); Aveiro (PT); Ljubljana (SI); Sosnowiec (PL) and the Liguria region (IT). The project is aimed at creating a major shift in public understanding of the causes of poor air quality – encouraging a focus on people’s everyday practices, such as commuting and shopping, rather than technology and top-down approaches. Dr Enda Hayes (UWE, Bristol), Technical Director of CLAiR-City, said: “Air quality management is failing in many cities around the world. This is an exciting and innovative project to try to address one of the key issues – how do you empower citizens to define their own solutions?”
The project, which kicked off in Bristol in May 2016, will analyse policies and existing datasets related to societal interactions with city infrastructure and resources such as energy, transport, food and water provisions, to better understand how citizens’ daily behaviour, practices and activities utilise these resources to generate air pollution and carbon emissions. Through a suite of innovative engagement activities, the project will raise awareness of the challenges facing cities, and empower citizens to define the pathways and solutions to a clean air, low carbon, healthy future. IWSN team members based at UWE, Dr Enda Hayes and Mr. Andy King, key research leaders within the CLAiR-City project, will explore pathways to align IWSN with CLAiR-City to enhance our understanding of water-energy-food-carbon nexus challenges within cities and the use of game technology to engage citizens while increasing the reach and impact of both research projects.
For further information please contact Dr Enda Hayes.
Citizen Led Air pollution Reduction in Cities (CLAiR-City) Consortium Members:
- Trinomics B.V. (Project Coordinator – Netherlands)
- University of the West of England, Bristol (Technical Lead – UK)
- Statistics Netherlands CBS (Netherlands)
- Technical University of Denmark (Denmark)
- Norwegian Institute for Air Research (Norway)
- PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Netherlands)
- REC Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary)
- Techne Consulting (Italy)
- Transport & Mobility Leuven (Belgium)
- University of Aveiro (Portugal)
- Municipality of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Bristol City Council (UK)
- Intermunicipal Community of Aveiro Region (Portugal)
- Liguria Region (Italy)
- Municipality of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
- Sosnowiec City Council (Poland)
Graphics by Laura at Auralab.