REP Research Roundup: April

Members of academic staff have maintained a high level of research activity throughout the pandemic, producing a stream of research publications and applications for external funding to support new research. Selected examples of recent funding awards include:

1) A successful award from the Population Health Agent-based Simulation nEtwork (PHASE), for original research into healthier urban development and travel behaviour priorities, working with public health consultants at the University of Manchester and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

2) Projects with the University of Reading Institute of Environmental Analytics funded by the UK Space Agency:

• RIOS: Re-settlement Information and Observing System. A space solution to monitor informal settlements at risk and support resettlement to safe areas focusing on assessing the suitability of Earth observation to provide a monitoring service for the management of natural hazard defences and informal settlements, with a focus on Colombia.
• Weather Alerts and Risk Analysis for Network Operators (WARN) involving the UK, Barbados and Colombia, focuses on critical infrastructure and environmental hazard. The aim is to adapt an existing market-ready software solution to demonstrate applicability and utility in the context of managing risks within energy networks. Specifically, it will help users evaluate the risk that weather events pose to electricity assets. Our project will therefore deliver near-time weather alerts; assessment of energy infrastructure impacts and provide climate projection data to help users with management of future weather-related vulnerabilities and risks.

3) On June 8^th, academics from Real Estate and Planning will attend a University of Reading Climate and Finance Research event bringing together staff interested in interdisciplinary research on climate and finance to foster collaborative research activities and develop new opportunities. The speakers will include academics from the Meteorology Department, Henley Business School, National Centre of Atmospheric Science and Institute for Environmental Analytics. Dr Jorn van de Wetering from Real Estate and Planning will present on “Climate Risks and their Implications for Commercial Property Valuations”.

4) As part of an ongoing 5-years project funded by the Medical Research Council Prevent (PRP) Consortium Innovation Fund: Tackling Root Causes Upstream of Unhealthy Urban Development (TRUUD), Kathy Pain, Professor of Real Estate Development, is seeking participation from the real estate industry in an initiative to incorporate health and wellbeing data in ESG reporting and viability analysis. If you are interested in finding out about opportunities to get involved, please contact Kathy