£42 million investment in new research hubs to accelerate trajectory to net zero

2 March 2025

UCL researchers will be involved in four multi-million-pound research hubs that will focus on advancing progression towards net zero.

The new £42 million initiative, which is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will see the creation of seven virtual research hubs across England.

The hubs will cover themes including transport and the built environment, indoor environments in a net zero world, sustainable healthy diets, and decarbonising health and social care pathways.

UCL will be involved in four of these hubs:

Child and Adolescent Health Impacts of Learning Indoor Environments under Net Zero (CHILI) hub.
Healthy Low-carbon Transport Hub (HLTH)
Indoor HABItability during the Transition to Net Zero Housing Hub (INHABIT)
National Hub on Net Zero, Health and Extreme Heat (HEARTH)

Announcing the new investment, Health Minister Baroness Gillian Merron said: "This £42 million investment into net zero research hubs will bring together world-class researchers to boost public health and tackle inequalities.

“Through our Plan for Change, we will make the UK a clean energy superpower while improving health outcomes for everyone.”

Improving the environmental sustainability and quality of schools and nurseries

CHILI, which will be led by Professor Pia Hardelid (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health), aims to ensure the indoor environment at schools and nurseries can support children’s health and education, whilst also being environmentally sustainable.

The hub involves researchers from a range of backgrounds including engineering, public health, clinical medicine, mental health research and education.

The ’net zero target’ means that by 2050, the UK should not put more carbon emissions (which lead to global warming) into the atmosphere than it takes out. To meet this target, it important that buildings in the UK are more energy efficient.

Schools and nurseries currently make up 15% of carbon emissions from public buildings in the UK.

Builders use more insulation and airtight designs to make buildings more energy efficient. But while this may mean that less energy is required to heat buildings, it could also lead to more indoor air pollution becoming trapped, or making it very hot indoors.

Respiratory infections also spread more easily in airtight buildings.

Professor Hardelid said: “We are delighted to have received this funding from the NIHR and UKRI, focusing on how we can improve the physical and mental health of children and young people whilst making school and nursery buildings more energy efficient.

“Schools and nurseries are crucial environments where children learn, develop, socialise and eventually take exams. Our research will support schools and nursery buildings to become carbon neutral whilst maximising children’s health, learning and wellbeing.

“We will involve children, young people and their school communities throughout our project to find workable solutions that best support them.”

The team - which includes collaborators from UCL, Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Swansea University, University of Leeds, University of York and the UK Health Security Agency – will work closely with policy makers, schools, parents and carers, and children and young people to ensure their findings improve health and education for all children.

Maximising the health benefits of low-carbon transport

Another hub where UCL is a key organisation is the Healthy Low-carbon Transport Hub (HLTH).

HLTH, which will receive a £7.4 million grant and be led by the University of Southampton, is being established to conduct research into the potential to maximise the health benefits of low-carbon transport policy measures.

Historically, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has not considered physical and mental health impacts. For example, in the UK replacing petrol with diesel cars led to poorer air quality and worse health outcomes.

The new research aims to avoid these mistakes in future by identifying barriers, incentives and accelerants to implementing healthy low-carbon transport schemes and proposing and evaluating new solutions towards maximising health co-benefits and reducing health inequalities associated with low-carbon transport interventions.

Professor Nick Tyler, Director of the Centre for Transport Studies and PEARL at UCL, and HLTH project co-lead, said: “At PEARL we ask fundamental research questions about how human brains interact with physical and sensory infrastructure so that we can understand how to ensure that infrastructure is fit for people now and in the future.

“This transdisciplinary approach helps to build solutions that are fit for purpose for future generations, enabling people and the environment to thrive in a healthy, equitable way.

“In collaboration with our partners in the Healthy Low-carbon Transport Hub we will co-cultivate, co-design and test potential solutions at scale through controlled-environment experiments with people, and in the form of pilot of physical designs at PEARL or demonstration schemes in our partner local authorities.”

Accelerating the creation of healthy net-zero homes and tackling extreme heat

UCL researchers, including Professor Michael Davies and Professor Anna Mavrogianni (UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment), will be involved in the ‘Indoor HABItability during the Transition to Net Zero Housing Hub’ (INHABIT), which aims to accelerate the creation of healthy, net zero homes across the UK where everyone enjoys clean air and comfort indoors.

The five-year project, led by the Universities of Birmingham and Edinburgh, will be backed by £7.3 million of UKRI and NIHR funding. It will bring together local, regional and national authorities, housing associations, businesses, and research organisations to reduce negative effects from indoor environments during the transition to Net Zero housing with practical, scalable solutions.

Finally, Professor Davies and Professor Mavrogianni will also play a role in the HEARTH hub, which aims to better understand how the net zero transition can help reduce the health risks associated with extreme heat faced by many vulnerable communities. The hub will be led by Rajat Gupta, Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Climate Change from Oxford Brookes University.

Image

Credit: Bilanol on iStock.

Media contact

Matt Midgley

Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 6995

Email: m.midgley [at] ucl.ac.uk