July 16, 2021

infection resilient environments

The Royal Academy of Engineering and its partners in the National Engineering Policy Centre were asked by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance to prepare a report to address:

1. How we can redesign and retrofit buildings and transport to make them more resilient to the spread of infection in future; and
2. What should be done ahead of winter 2021/2 to operate buildings and transport in a way that reduces the risk of COVID-19 transmission, and makes them acceptably safe while enabling a degree of normality.

The Royal Academy of Engineering has worked closely with the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) and other UK engineering institutions to produce a report to government that was published on Friday 16 July.

Four of the report’s authors were able present their findings and recommendations to journalists and discuss how ‘infection resilience’ should be designed into buildings and transport.

Speakers included:

Prof Peter Guthrie OBE FREng, Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chair of the infection resilient environments working group

Dr Hywel Davies CChem CSci, Technical Director, CIBSE

Prof Shaun Fitzgerald OBE FREng, Director of Research, Centre for Climate Repair, Cambridge University

Prof Cath Noakes OBE, Professor of Environmental Engineering for Buildings, University of Leeds