A consortium of universities and research institutions, led by Trinomics from The Netherlands, has won a €6,7 million EU funded project to actively engage European citizens in 6 countries to research their personal impact on air quality and CO2 emissions in their cities. The project will use innovate tools like specially made apps and games for smart phones to generate citizen-led policies to improve air-related health in our cities.
Thousands of people across Europe will be invited to share their views on how to reduce air pollution and improve related public health in six pilot cities. Residents will use a specially created game on their smartphones, tablets and laptops to suggest how their home cities should develop in the future. The result will be directly translated in improved city policies.
The four-year CLAiR-City project, funded through the EU’s Horizon 2020 program, features 16 research partners including the pilot cities of Bristol (UK); Amsterdam (NL); Aveiro region (PT); Ljubljana (SI); Sosnowiec (PL) and the Liguria region (IT).
European and local authorities are struggling to combat air pollution, a problem responsible for the deaths of more than 400,000 people in Europe every year. Up to a third of Europeans living in cities are exposed to pollutant levels exceeding EU air quality standards, with approximately 90 per cent affected according to the World Health Organization’s more stringent guidelines. The project is aimed at creating a major shift in public understanding towards the causes of poor air quality – encouraging a focus on people’s everyday practices like commuting and shopping rather than technology and top-down approaches.
Dr Enda Hayes (UWE, Bristol), Technical Director of CLAiR-City, said: “Air quality management is failing in many cities around the world. This is an exciting and innovative project to try to address one of the key issues – how do you empower citizens to define their own solution?”
To learn more please follow the project on Twitter (@CLAiRCity) or for further information please contact:
Hans Bolscher, Project Director or Enda Hayes, Technical Director
Trinomics Rotterdam University of West England – Bristol
hans.bolscher@trinomics.eu enda.hayes@uwe.ac.uk
+31 648 135 367 +44 117 32 83825
Citizen Led Air pollution Reduction in Cities (CLAiR-City) Consortium Members:
- Trinomics B.V. (Project Coordinator – Netherlands)
- University of the West of England, Bristol (Technical Lead – UK)
- Statistics Netherlands CBS (Netherlands)
- Technical University of Denmark (Denmark)
- Norwegian Institute for Air Research (Norway)
- PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Netherlands)
- REC Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary)
- Techne Consulting (Italy)
- Transport & Mobility Leuven (Belgium)
- University of Aveiro (Portugal)
- Municipality of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Bristol City Council (UK)
- Intermunicipal Community of Aveiro Region (Portugal)
- Liguria Region (Italy)
- Municipality of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
- Sosnowiec City Council (Poland)
