£3 million awarded to help tackle air pollution

UK Research and Innovation has awarded £3 million to support six research networks that will investigate solutions to air pollution.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) states in its Clean Air Strategy that poor air pollution is the largest environmental risk to public health in the UK. Each year, air pollution accounts for around 40,000 premature deaths.

Outdoor air pollution has been shown to have a significant impact on the respiratory and wider health of the population, including increasing risk of lung cancer, making symptoms worse, causing hospitalisation among people living with lung diseases, and impairing child lung development.

UKRI says that the six new multidisciplinary networks will drive forward research and innovation to help tackle major air quality challenges within both indoor and outdoor spaces including home, school, work, and public transport. Topics being explored will include: exposure to airborne biological material; urban and building ventilation design; air quality impacts of decarbonisation and low emission transport; and protection for groups most at risk, including designing healthy schools.

Stephen Holgate, a Strategic Priorities Fund Clean Air Programme Champion, said: “These six new research and innovation networks focused on cleaning up the air we breathe recognise the importance of the indoor environment, the total exposure of an individual and the sources of such pollutants as major drivers of adverse health. In bringing together atmospheric, health and behavioural sciences, the new interdisciplinary networks offer a unique opportunity for a new paradigm for translational research in this field to create solutions for the wicked problem that air pollution continues to create.”

Alison Cook, director of External Affairs at Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said: “Air pollution is bad for everyone but for the millions of people in the UK who live with a lung condition, it poses a real and immediate risk to their health. With tens of thousands of early deaths every year linked to exposure to poor air quality, it’s vital that we work together to fix this problem that disproportionately impacts certain groups, including the very young, older people and people with respiratory conditions. These awards will help to build a better understanding of how to tackle the threat caused by air pollution so that one day everyone can breathe clean air with healthy lungs.”

The networks awarded funding are: BioAirNet (Cranfield University); CleanAir4V (University of Birmingham); Breathing City (University of Leeds); Tackling Air Pollution at School (University of Cambridge); HEICCAM (University of Edinburgh); and the TRANSITION network (University of Birmingham).