This research programme will positively affect health and well-being and improve healthcare effectiveness to benefit the UK population. The aim is to create a team to deliver high impact research to improve the user experience of healthcare environments, through user participation in design, engineering and decision making. This research will produce (1) better healthcare environment designs; and (2) new methods for end user participation in engineering.Engineering produces things (environments, products, processes) to improve our quality of life, yet the people who will ultimately use these things are often not involved in their design (or if they are, this often amounts to tokenistic consultation , rather than embedded best practice). Decision making needs to directly involve the people who use these things, to capture their subjective opinions, ideas, language, feelings, and needs and translate these into a format meaningful for engineers. Involving people in engineering can have a transformative effect on new products and environments, but since this is not traditionally part of formal engineering training, the benefits of participation still have huge, untapped potential. Furthermore, the notion that engineering can be enhanced through working with other disciplines is only just beginning to have an impact in engineering practice. A radical step change is needed now, to equip our next generations of young engineers with the know-how to think in new creative waysParticipation is most powerful when it contributes to improving quality of life, and healthcare is the most timely and relevant application of this. The UK has been left with a legacy of aged hospital buildings that are unsuitable for the needs of today's increasing and ageing population. The design of healthcare environments can be linked to health outcomes so it is increasingly important to optimise the design and user experience of new build and redeveloped healthcare projects. The challenges faced by healthcare environment design are complex. Infection control, safety, security and environmental issues all impose constraints, and now the advent of patient choice means that the whole hospital environment must effectively sell the hospital as a carefully packaged experience. Improving healthcare design through participation requires a highly inter-disciplinary approach. This research programme draws together engineering with design, architecture, psychology, science, ICT and healthcare. Hospitals and industry will provide real life users and opportunities for piloting novel participatory design approaches (for example, in creating a better experience for patients in the Emergency Department). Government involvement will help to drive forward policy change, and crucially, end users (patients, staff, decision makers) are involved throughout. This programme of research is executed through 4 core research themes: (1) methods of participation, including exploiting developments in Information and Communication technology (ICT) as an enabler to participation; (2) best-use of representations of future healthcare environments for co-designing with, and presenting concepts to stakeholders; (3) data capture from these representations, and the best use, re-use and presentation of data to decision-makers; and (4) production of an evidence-base for this research by measuring the effects of engineering and design interventions on health and healthcare effectiveness. The ultimate vision is that this work will launch a step-change in engineering research, which will impact upon practice and education. This programme will set a precedent for user involvement in engineering, demonstrating how highly inter-disciplinary research teams can inject creativity and humanity into the creation of environments, products and services in new ways - which will lead to true innovation in design and engineering in the 21st Century.

The UK domestic sector is responsible for almost 40% of national carbon emissions. Any serious attempt to reduce these emissions must recognise the fact that the rate of housing stock renewal is slow, that space and water heating dominate the usage, and that householder appeal and interaction play a paramount role. This places the emphasis on retrofit solutions, and technologies that relate to energy supply and reduction in demand, plus alignment with user lifestyles.For any new technology to be successful, it must be accepted by the end users and meet their needs. These needs include their social, emotional, practical and economic needs. For technologies such as insulation (demand reduction) or heat pumps (energy supply), it is critical that they are considered as a coherent, integrated solution in the context of the built environment and the end users / householders. To this end, this project will identify the barriers and opportunities for possible energy saving and low carbon energy supply technologies, primarily from the perspective of the home and the householders. Other stakeholders in the process, such as installers, decorators, house maintainers and future home owners will also be pertinent to the success of the technologies, so their views will also be considered. This will enable the technologies to be specified and adapted to meet the needs of the ends users whilst satisfying the energy efficiency improvements desired for the property in question. The modified technologies will then be trialled in a dedicated, occupied and instrumented test house, providing further knowledge about technical performance, user interaction and occupant thermal comfort. For the trialled technologies, designs will be devised that encompass their functionality together with their cost-effective manufacture. It is anticipated that every household will require a suite of energy-related measures that matches the limitations of the house and the requirements of the householders. A design and selection tool will be produced for use by householders and installers to identify these measures as a single transaction (a 'one-stop-shop' approach) for deployment. The tool will be available for uptake by industry, and will be capable of expansion to accommodate other technologies in future.The programme of work comprises laboratory-based applied research to modify key technologies as informed by user needs, fundamental research to investigate innovative insulation solutions, and occupied test house trialling. Analysis and modelling will produce a practical design / selection tool for stakeholder use.This project provides an opportunity to bring together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers of international standing, supported by world-class equipment and backed by unique demonstration / trialling facilities. These resources will combine to ensure the accelerated advancement and uptake of selected technologies. The 'CALEBRE' project team is well-placed to significantly advance the field of building energy performance, and to make a real impact on UK domestic carbon emissions.