If the significant numbers of dwellings with solid masonry walls (SMWs) are to be insulated, there will have to be a paradigm shift in the way that moisture risk is assessed. Methods must be developed to clearly demonstrate that insulation solutions are effective, robust and resilient to moisture even when considering the vagaries of our future climate and the way that people choose to live in their homes. This research will result in new methods and metrics, backed by rigorous scientific evidence, that enable moisture risk assessment of SMWs to be carried out routinely, new insulation materials to be developed and more homes to be insulated. Insulating the UKs existing housing stock will be an essential step in achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets and alleviating fuel poverty. The highest levels of heat loss occur in the c30% (8 million) homes that have SMWs. Insulating these walls offers significant potential for fuel savings but may cause moisture problems. Water accumulates within SMWs when it is raining outside or humid inside and diminishes with drier conditions. This water can pass from one face of the wall to the other as there is no cavity to act as a capillary break. Applying insulation to either the inside or outside face of the wall changes the temperature of the masonry, the rate of wetting and drying at each face and the locations where water vapour might condense and accumulate. This moisture can lead to mould growth, interstitial condensation and freeze thaw damage. These problems can cause severe damage, are expensive to repair and can affect the health of occupants. Current guidance in the UK Building Regulations (approved document C) and related standards is not adequate for assessing moisture risk when insulating SMWs. The simplified steady-state vapour diffusion model is not appropriate because dynamic liquid moisture conduction is the dominant moisture transport mechanism when SMWs are exposed to rainfall. There is a distinct lack of guidance on how to use more advanced transient heat and moisture simulation software, what inputs should be used for the boundary conditions and how the results translate into moisture risk. Straightforward design principles, based on many years of practical experience and research, have led to contradictory advice e.g. there is no clear consensus on how permeable the insulation material should be to water vapour. Thus only a small handful of hygrothermal experts might ever attempt a quantitative risk assessment for insulating SMWs and fewer SMWs are being insulated as a result. This research project will address these problems. Firstly, a framework will be developed for using advanced heat and moisture simulation software to carry out moisture risk assessment. This will include guidance on the boundary conditions to be used at the inside of the wall, and outside especially for wind driven rain exposure. It will also identify appropriate criteria to minimise risk from moisture accumulation within the wall, mould growth at the indoor surface and freeze/thaw at the outside surface. A number of insulation materials will be compared to understand which can best reduce the risk of moisture damage when insulating SMWs. Secondly, probabilistic modelling methods will be used to understand how robust different insulation solutions are to moisture damage given that there is considerable uncertainty in boundary conditions and material properties. Thirdly, new approaches to moisture risk assessment will be explored. A 'moisture safety factor' might describe how resilient an insulated SMW is to extreme events such as flooding. It may be possible to develop a completely new laboratory test for assessing insulation solutions. The underlying strength of this research comes from the collection high quality primary data, in the new state-of-the-art Hygrothermal Test Facility, for validating the results from the models.

Addressing climate change through reducing carbon emissions is a crucial international goal. End use energy demand (EUED) reduction is essential for the UK to meet its legally binding 80% carbon reduction target and has significant economic and social benefits: it lowers the operating costs of businesses, increasing their competitiveness, and reduces the fuel bills for home owners, guarding against fuel poverty and improving quality of life. Government, industry and academia recognise the importance of EUED reduction and are responding by developing new policies, products and services. However, there is a shortage of highly trained individuals who will spearhead these initiatives. Recognising this, the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) has identified EUED in buildings, transport and industry as a priority funding area for the development of a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT). For the last 4 years, the UCL Energy Institute and the School of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough, have run a successful CDT: the London-Loughborough Centre for Doctoral Research in Energy Demand (LoLo). The Centre is seeking funding for a further 8 years to train 60 students. The scope will be expanded beyond buildings to include energy demand in transport and industry directly related to the built environment. The new Centre will build on the existing four year programme: a one year Masters of Research in Energy Demand followed by a three year PhD. Training will be enhanced by an annual colloquium; international summer school; team building away days; seminar series'; creativity, communication and business training; and numerous other activities. Students will undertake placements with partners and in relevant overseas organisations. They will have a firm grounding in core skills and knowledge, but appreciate the multi-disciplinary perspective needed to understand the technical, economic and social factors that shape energy demand. The Centre's research will address new challenges within five themes, grouped around major research programmes: technology and systems, energy epidemiology, urban scale energy demand, building performance and process, and unintended consequences. This linkage ensures students' work gains momentum, is at the forefront of knowledge, has excellent resources, and is supported by a wide group of world class academics. The Centre will again be led by Profs Lowe and Lomas; together they have over 60 years of experience in energy and buildings. They will be supported by Academic Managers and Administrators and over 40 academic supervisors whose expertise spans the full range of disciplines necessary for EUED research: from science and engineering to ergonomics and design, psychology and sociology through to economics and politics. An Advisory Board will help steer the Centre, whilst the wider group of 26 partners, representing policy, industry, academia and NGO interests, will aid students' training by: developing projects, offering mentoring, hosting students in their organisation, giving workshops and seminars, and direct funding. The proposed new Centre represents excellent value for money. The total cost to the EPSRC to train 60 students is less than the current Centre cost to train 40 students. However, the funding per student will rise by 20%, a result of the financial commitment of our partners and host institutions. The Centre aims to have an enduring impact through our graduates and their research. Short term impact will be achieved through students' engagement with industry, policy makers, NGOs and academia through the annual Colloquium, the international summer school, publications, the web-site and other social media, working with partners and through public engagement. In the long term our graduates will help transform the EUED sector through projects they lead, the students and colleagues they will train and the organisations they influence.

This proposal is concerned with the renewal of the Salford IMRC which was initially established in January 2002. This proposal will extent the life of the Salford Centre for Research and Innovation (SCRI) in the built and human environment, until 2011 and further increase the impact that the centre has created in the first five years of its lifecycle. The rolling research agenda and evolving vision of the Centre has been very well received by the industrial and academic circles, as it has been made explicit by the international assessment panels and this renewal aims to firmly establish the world class status of the centre and increase the performance of UK Plc. The centre brings together significant expertise from three research institutes within the university of Salford and aims to continue its collaboration with more that 60 partners in the industrial and academic communities internationally.

The UK is on the brink of a new, third age of energy efficiency. UK greenhouse gas emissions must fall a further 65% by 2050, but the energy system will decarbonise even faster. Large wind, marine and solar generators, supported by energy storage, will dominate the central supply system and intelligent, community and building-integrated systems will be embedded in our towns and cities. This interaction of people, buildings and energy systems will transform the relationship between supply and demand. Our domestic and non-domestic buildings can no longer be passive consumers of heat and power, instead, our homes and businesses must participate actively in a flexible, integrated, low-carbon supply and demand system, buying, selling and storing heat and power to achieve 'Energy resilience through security, integration, demand management and decarbonisation'. This must be achieved whilst simultaneously meeting our human need for high quality spaces in which to live and work, thereby increasing the productivity of the UK economy, reducing fuel poverty, improving health and wellbeing, and supporting an ageing population. The new EPSRC CDT in Energy Resilience and the Built Environment (ERBE) will train at least 50 PhD graduates to understand the systemic, radical, multi and interdisciplinary challenges we face, and have the leadership credentials to effect change. Students will be immersed in world-leading research environments at UCL, Loughborough University collaborating with the Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy in Ireland. ERBE students will attain a depth of understanding only possible as cohorts work and learn together. An integrated, 4-year programme will be co-created with our stakeholder partners and students. It will provide the knowledge, research and transferable skills to enable outstanding graduates from physics to social sciences to pursue research in one of three themes: * Flexibility and resilience: the interaction between buildings and the whole supply system, through new generation and storage technology, enabled by smart control systems and new business models. * Technology and system performance: demand reduction and decarbonisation of the built environment through design, construction methods, technological innovation, monitoring and regulation. * Comfort, health and well-being: buildings and energy systems that create productive work environments and affordable, clean, safe homes. The Centre will be led by Directors who have worked together for over 30 years, supported by deputies, academic managers, administrators and a course development team who have successfully delivered the CDT in Energy Demand. Over 50 world-leading academics are available as student supervisors. The core team will be guided by an Advisory Board representing the UK government, energy suppliers, research organisations, consultancies, construction companies and charities; more than 30 prominent individuals have expressed an interest in joining the board. Board members and stakeholders will provide secondments, business skills training and careers advice. The Centre will provide training and research benefits to the wider energy and buildings community. A new online Buildings, Energy, Resilience and Demand Hub will be created to share training materials, videos, seminars and to promote collaboration, a residential, weeklong programme, Energy Resilience and the Built Environment, will be open to PhD students from across the world as will an annual, student-led conference. An annual Anglo-Irish summer school and a colloquium will showcase the Centre's work and bring students face-to-face with potential future employers. By providing training in a rigorous, world-leading, stakeholder-shaped, outward-facing and multi-centred research environment, the new ERBE CDT will help the UK achieve the goals in the government's Industrial Strategy and Clean Growth Strategy.

Modernising the UK's health and social care system is a priority for government and for the country as a whole. To do this, wide ranging organisational and funding reforms are being put in place. An unprecedented investment to renew the built and technical infrastructure for delivering care is also underway: new hospitals and primary care centres are being built, information and communication technology is being upgraded and new technologies for diagnosing and treating disease are being introduced. If world-class infrastructure is to be delivered, this investment must achieve its full potential. The aim of HaCIRIC is to establish a new research centre to help accomplish this. HaCIRIC's focus is on the built and technical infrastructure for health and social care, and the interaction between infrastructure specification and the way patients are treated. Improving the way this is planned, delivered and managed is at the core of HaCIRIC's activity. What are the challenges? The health and social care system is one of the most complex and rapidly changing organisational and technical environments in any sector of the economy. Many stakeholders are involved in delivering care, funding mechanisms are convoluted, and patterns of demand and use are changing, as are government health policies. All this places new pressures on the underlying infrastructure. These are compounded by two problems. First, there is an historic legacy of out-dated buildings and cultures within the care system. Second, the life cycles of the various elements of the infrastructure / buildings, medical and information technology / are mismatched. Each involves complex supply chains, multiple users with their own needs and differing institutional and funding arrangements. All these have to be reconciled. For example, the current PFI programme for new hospitals involves supply contracts for thirty years or more, but incorporates technologies which have five year life cycles to help deliver diagnostics and therapies which are undergoing rapid evolutionary change. Modernising the health and social care infrastructure will therefore require innovative approaches. HaCIRIC will help develop the tools and processes which will embed 'innovation as normal business' amongst those responsible for delivering the investment in infrastructure. Its research programme has been developed in partnership with all the key stakeholders from the care system, including the Department of Health, the NHS, the Department of Trade and Industry and the supply industries. Seven research themes have been identified:- Managing innovation in a context of technological change- Procurement for innovation- Innovative design and construction- Care delivery practices- Delivering improved performance through operations management- Knowledge management in complex systems - Design and evaluation of integrated systems HaCIRIC is a collaboration between existing research centres at Imperial College London and the Universities of Loughborough, Reading and Salford. Additional partners from other universities, industry and the care system will be involved in specific research projects. Together this represents a resource valued at more than 11m, of which 7.0m consists of EPSRC support, 2.9m is from the four existing research centres, 500,000 is from the Department of Trade and Industry and 720,000 is from industrial partners. HaCIRIC will therefore represent a substantial resource and a unique capability in skills and knowledge to find solutions to the key healthcare infrastructure problems of the 21st century.