Research projects
Take a look through the current and complete projects we are working on here in the Centre.
Research projects
HEALTHY SAILING: Prevention, mitigation, management of infectious diseases on cruise ships and passenger ferries
Over €4.4 million awarded under the Horizon 2020 to HEALTHY SAILING project that aims to contribute to improve quality of passenger shipping services brought to society, facilitating recovery from COVID-19 pandemic, making the passenger shipping sector, safer, more resilient, competitive and efficient by producing evidence for infection control, validated prevention, mitigation, management measures and training to be used for policy making and ship operations, whose implementation will reduce public health incidents on-board large passenger ships.
- Duration: September 2022 - August 2025
- Total value: ~ €4.4 million
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar
- Lead PI: Professor Christos Hadjichristodoulou (University of Thessaly).
RECLAIM: Reclaiming Forgotten Cities - Turning cities from vulnerable spaces to healthy places for people
Funded by the UKRI (EPSRC, NERC, AHRC), RECLAIM is a Network Plus grant. It aims to create a multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral network to maximise the social, ecological, urban, and economic positive impacts of nature-based solutions (NBS) and green-blue-grey-infrastructure (GBGI), including mitigation of hydro-meteorological hazards, enhancing ecosystem services and how NBS can contribute to ambitious net-zero targets.
- Duration: February 2022 – February 2025
- Total value: £1.2M
- Lead PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Co-PI: Professor Laurence Jones (UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology)
- Co-I's: Dr Thomas Kjeldsen (University of Bath), Dr Nerea Calvillo Gonzalez (University of Warwick), Dr Shelagh Malham (Bangor University).
Greening of cities for urban cooling (GreenCities)
Funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), GreenCities project aims to address the following question: “Are the cooling benefits provided by urban parks reduced by high humidity in the humid tropics and does this vary with time of day and season?” The project is a new multi-disciplinary international partnership designed to bring together leading scientists from the UK and Brazil.
- Duration: October 2022 - September 2024
- Total value: £125,000
- Lead PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Co-I: Professor Laurence Jones (UKCEH)
- Brazilian Co-PI: Professor Maria de Fatima Andrade.
SAMHE: School's air quality monitoring for health and education
Funded by the EPSRC and Department for Education, the SAMHE project aims to establish a school-based sensor network which is representative of the nation’s (approximately 23,000) state-funded schools and through the network record measurements of carbon dioxide to evaluate classroom ventilation levels in the context of the pandemic. SAMHE will provide a wide-spread sensor network in schools and complimentary analysis toolkits to enable: enhanced understanding of air quality in schools to deliver a legacy that seeks to evidence national policies that result in improved health and education through changes in air-quality, and better engagement with school children in all aspects of air quality science that might lead to a step-change in future national awareness.
- Duration: September 2022 – August 2024
- Total value: £1.5M
- Co-I and Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Lead PI: Dr Henry Burridge (Imperial College London)
- Co-I's: Professor Paul Linden (University of Cambridge), Dr Sarah West (University of York), Dr Dale Weston (UKHSA).
eHeat-Cool: A online climate change education project for children
Funded by the Ove Arup Foundation, eHeat-cool is an e-learning platform where primary and secondary schools can register to raise climate change literacy and awareness in school children through a playful manner. ‘eHeat-Cool Initiative’ combines quizzes that focus on climate change drivers and their impacts with the use of thermal imaging device, in order to teach complex scientific phenomena with relatively easier and engaging way to make the students aware of environmental problems.
- Duration: July 2022 – July 2024
- Total value: £25,000
- Lead PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
CO-TRACE: Covid-19 transmission risk assessment case studies - education establishments
Funded by the EPSRC under the Covid-19 call, CO-TRACE aims to quantify the risk of airborne Covid-19 transmission in schools and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation measures, by developing techniques to assess the absolute risk of infection in a given indoor space, using field studies in primary and secondary schools, complemented by laboratory experiments and CFD to elucidate the flow patterns responsible for airborne transport.
- Duration: February 2021 – July 2024
- Total value: £988,056
- Co-I and Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Lead PI: Professor Paul Linden (University of Cambridge)
- Co-I's: Professor Chris Pain (Imperial College London), Dr Henry Burridge (Imperial College London).
Mobile and interactive HedgeDATE for public engagement on air pollution exposure mitigation
Funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (Research England), this project aims to transform the HedgeDATE (Hedge Design for Abatement of Traffic Emissions) prototype into a high-quality, accessible and interactive tool, optimised for mobile, tablet, and other formats. The focus of this project is to optimise HedgeDATE for public engagement on air quality and how plants and greenspaces can be managed to reduce pollution exposure. This development milestone will support succeeding progress towards a commercial tool for green infrastructure professionals.
- Duration: December 2021 – July 2024
- Total value: £40,000
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
CoGREEN: Citizen Scientists-led Demonstration of the Multiple Co-Benefits of Green Infrastructure Intervention along the Road-Facing School Perimeter
Funded by Reclaiming Forgotten Cities - Turning cities from vulnerable spaces to healthy places for people (RECLAIM) under the “Urban Greenspace and People Call”, CoGreen project aims to aim is to construct an aesthetically pleasing nature-based green infrastructure along the road-facing perimeter of the school, together with educational messages to try to instigate behavioural change in the passers-by, and to investigate how it impacts air pollution, noise levels and air temperature in the playground and classrooms, and how the intervention affects biodiversity and anecdotal wellbeing in and around the school
- Duration: January 2023 – March 2024
- Total value: £40,000
- PI: Dr Abhijith Kooloth Valappil (University of Surrey)
- Co-PI: Kate Collins (Head Teacher, Sandfield Primary School, Guildford)
- CoI & RECLAIM Network Plus Mentor: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
LivGBGI: Living lab demonstration of green-blue-grey infrastructure’s multiple co-benefits (heatwave, flood, drought, and noise)
Funded by Reclaiming Forgotten Cities - Turning cities from vulnerable spaces to healthy places for people (RECLAIM) under the “Urban Greenspace and People Call”. It aims to build evidence for the direct benefits of green-blue-grey infrastructure (GBGI) for heatwaves and co-benefits for drought and flood risks, noise pollution and associated human health impairments. The project builds on the existing Guildford Living Lab network of heat sensors located at the key strategic locations (pond, park, green woodland and built environment) to evaluate the multi-benefits of GBGI for heat stress reduction, drought and flood risk reduction, and traffic-noise reduction, through environmental parameters monitoring and numerical modelling (WRF, HEC-RAS and the noise modelling).
- Duration: January 2023 – March 2024
- Total value: £40,000
- Lead PI: Dr Sisay Debele (University of Surrey)
- Co-PI: Jeetendra Sahani (University of Surrey)
- Co-I's: Mrs Soheilla Khalili (University of Surrey); Dr David Fletcher (UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology); Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey); and Professor Laurence Jones (UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology).
CArE-Kitchens: Clean Air for Kitchens
Funded by the Research and Innovation (R&I) under the Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF), CArE-Kitchens project will consolidate the efforts of the GCARE team over the years through the CArE-Cities and CArE-Homes projects that included 12 ODA partners. As a product of such global scientific efforts, a booklet was produced; ‘Mitigating Exposure to Cooking Emissions in Kitchens of Low Middle-Income Homes’: a guide for home occupants, owners, builders and local councils, that provides practical suggestions for frontline users and decision-makers. The guidance will be translated into 19 languages aiming to influence the behaviour and relevant policies in the context of in-kitchen exposure to air pollution fumes during cooking, on a global scale.
- Duration: October 2022 – July 2023
- Total value: £20,000
- Lead PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
CLASS: Co-designing solutions for sustainable classrooms
Funded by the Institute of Sustainability’s Seed Corn Research Grant, the project extends the work of Guildford Living Lab by finding the optimum solution for ventilation-pollution nexus for improving classroom air quality whilst reducing the energy consumption.
- Duration: May 2022 – July 2022
- Total value: £3,000
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (GCARE, University of Surrey).
Knowledge transfer and practical application of research on indoor air quality (KTP-IAQ)
Funded by the EPSRC/Surrey, KTP-IAQ is a project with the 12 official development assistance (ODA) countries. It aims to build a knowledge exchange platform across ODA countries in the area of improving indoor air quality, exploiting knowledge and implementing findings in order to ensure positive impact on the health and wellbeing of the people.
- Duration: September 2021 – March 2022
- Total value: £20,000
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey) with co-investigator partners from 12 ODA countries.
GLL-ZCG: Participatory pilot project for the real-time display of air pollution (RealAir)
Funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (Research England), the RealAir project aims to create evidence via local pilot case studies through the principles of ‘working locally to impact globally’. GCARE is collaborating with the ZERO Carbon Guildford to design, set up and operationalise a real-time air quality monitoring system to monitor particulate matter in different size fractions using affordable sensing technology.
- Duration: December 2021 – March 2022
- Total value: £22,500
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
How building heats and trees cool our cities (Heat-Cool)
Funded by the RSA under the Climate Change and Risk Education grants, the Heat-Cool project aims to develop children’s awareness by educating them of the adverse impact of local heat sources, climate change and urban heat island impacts on their environment and subsequently health, and the importance of control measures such as GI to cool down their environments.
- Duration: 1 September 2021 to 31 March 2022
- Total value: £10,000
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
INHALE: Health assessment across biological length scales for personal pollution exposure and its mitigation
EPSRC Funded project with Imperial College London and University of Edinburgh.
- Duration: April 2019 - March 2022
- Total value: £2,793,915
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
OPERANDUM: Open-air laboratories for nature based solutions to manage environmental risks
Over €12 million awarded under the Horizon 2020 to OPERANDUM project that aims to reduce hydro-meteorological risks in European territories through co-designed, co-developed, deployed, tested and demonstrated innovative green and blue/grey/hybrid nature-based solutions and push business exploitation.
- Duration: 2018 - 2022
- Total value: €646,000
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
SENSORS: Metrology to exploit low-cost sensor networks for applications in air quality and energy management
SENSORS is funded by the EPSRC/NPL
- Duration: 2018 - 2022
- PIs: Professor Prashant Kumar, Dr Nick Martin (NPL).
'COVAIR': Is SARS-CoV-2 airborne and does it interact with particle pollutants?
Funded by the EPSRC under the Covid-19 call, COVAIR wish to develop diagnostic tools and predictive sensing to detect SARS-CoV2 in crowded urban environments in order to address whether the airborne amounts are high enough to cause a respiratory infection and whether pollution particles can carry live virus that is directly inhaled into the lungs. We will determine whether SARS-CoV2 can be detected as an active virus in the air of hospitals with Covid-19 patients, and if so, use a similar technique to measure the virus in crowded spaces such as in underground train platforms, central station concourse, shopping malls and busy roadside.
- Duration: January 2021 – December 2021
- Total value: £582,000
- Co-I and Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Lead PI: Professor Fan Chung (Imperial College London, ICL)
- Co-I's: Professor Chris Pain (ICL), Professor Alex Porter (ICL), Professor Ian Adcock (ICL), Dr Pankaj K Bhavsar (ICL)
- Project manager: Claire Dilliway (ICL).
Lambeth schools air quality project
Funded by the GSST Charity, our GCARE team is working with Global Action Plan and the engineering company, Arup, to improve the air quality for children and teachers at five London schools in the Lambeth area. The project will build an understanding of the unique factors affecting air pollution in and around the Lambeth schools and will design and implement tailored solutions to meet those challenges.
- Duration: October 2020 - October 2021
- Total value: £103,000
- PIs: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey), Global Action Plan, Arup.
Pollution sensing via electric charging system
Funded through Coll21 with an industrial partner, this project assessed the technical feasibility of integrating an air pollution sensor in the available space within the MOLE autonomous electric vehicle charging product. The GCARE team selected a suitable sensor, proposed the preliminary design sketch and sensor support, and integrated it into the available concept with the help of the MOLE design team after considering all the constraints.
- Duration: June to July 2021
- Total value: £17,000
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
SCAN: Street-scale greening for cooling and clean air in cities
Funded by the UGPN Research Collaboration Fund (2020, the aims of this project include developing a new framework for street-scale greening that is generic, inclusive of pollution-cooling trade-offs, evidence-based, and practicable.
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Co-PI: Professor Pascal Perez (UOW)
- Co-I's: Professor Lidia Morawska (University of Surrey), Professor Clare Murphy (Paton-Walsh) (UOW), Dr Hugh Forehead (UOW), Professor Kris French (UOW).
CArE-Homes: Clean air engineering for homes
Funded by Research England under the GCRF.
- Duration: February 2021 - July 2021
- Total value: £139,000
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar, University of Surrey.
Improving desk-based methods for enhancing urban air pollution mitigation by green infrastructure at different scales
EPSRC PhD studentship awarded through the University of Surrey's University Research Scholarship (URS) scheme.
- Duration: 2018 - 2021
- Student: Yendle Barwise
- Supervisor: Professor Prashant Kumar.
MAPE: Mitigation of air pollution exposure to young children
EPSRC PhD studentship, with industrial collaborator: BRIZI Ltd
- Duration: 2017 - 2021
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
ASAP-Delhi: An integrated study of air pollutant sources in the Delhi National Capital Region
UK-India NERC funded project with:
- IIT Delhi (Professor Mukesh Khare)
- NPL India (Dr Chhemendra Sharma)
- University of Birmingham (Professor William Bloss, Professor Roy Harrison, Dr Zongbo Shi)
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar
- Duration: 2016 - 2020.
CArE-Cities: Clean air engineering for cities
Funded by Research England under the GCRF.
- Duration: 2019 - 2020
- Total value: £135,000
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar, University of Surrey.
Pollution Guardian stage two
Funded by UK Research and Innovation under the Innovate UK to develop and test the prototype affordable kit for sensing real-time air quality exposure using low-cost sensors, mobile based app and cloud application.
- Duration: January 2020 - December 2020
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (Surrey), Robert Alfonsi (AAP).
GlobalHOM
GlobalHOM is currently developing a disruptive innovation aiming to provide affordable, environmentally sustainable, flexible, modular housing with a built-in ‘Smart Home’ technological platform and associated hardware at the core of their design. It is worth noting that the approach GlobalHOM has taken to conceptualise and develop their offering is based on an end-user-centric approach, more akin to consumer product design than a construction industry approach whereby innovations typically focus on cost/time saving benefits for the construction industry stakeholders rather than the end-user.
- Duration: February 2019 - January 2020
- Funded by UK Research and Innovation under the Innovate UK
- At Surrey: £98,966
- Surrey Co-PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
NOTS: Novel high-resolution spatial mapping of health and climate emissions from urban transport in São Paulo megacity
NOTS is funded by the FAPESP/University of Surrey.
- Duration: 2018 - 2020
- PI's: Professor Prashant Kumar, Pedro Jose Perez-Martinez, Professor Maria de Fátima Andrade, Professor Regina Maura de Miranda.
iSCAPE: Improving smart control of air pollution in European cities
Nearly €6 million awarded under the Horizon 2020 to iSCAPE project that aims to integrate and advance the control of air quality and carbon emissions in European cities in the context of climate change through the development of sustainable and passive air pollution remediation strategies, policy interventions and behavioural change initiatives.
- Duration: 2016 - 2019
- Value at Surrey: €649,000
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
HedgeDATE: Hedge design for the abatement of traffic emissions
The HedgeDATE project is funded by the University of Surrey’s Urban Living Award.
- Duration: January 2019 - July 2019
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey.
Pollution Guardian
Funded by Research and Innovation under the Innovate UK
- Duration: 2018 -2019
- PI's: Professor Prashant Kumar (Surrey), Robert Alfonsi (AAP).
GREENMASS: Green infrastructure and health mapping alliance of Surrey academics
The aim of the GREENMASS is to establish a cross-disciplinary university-wide alliance to understand linkages between ‘green infrastructure’ and ‘health mapping’ in urban areas.
- Funded by the University of Surrey’s Urban Living Award
- Project PI: Professor Prashant Kumar
- Co-PI: Prof Simon de Lusignan
- Co-I's: Prof Angela Druckman, Prof Derk-Jan Dijk, Dr Birgitta Gatersleben, Dr Anne C Skeldon, Dr Sarah Allison
- ECRs: Arvind Tiwari, KV Abhijith, Ashish Sharma, Dr Sarkawat Hama, Dr Uy Hoang.
ASTRID: Accessibility, social justice and transport emission impacts of transit-oriented development
This project seeks to investigate the causal mechanisms underlying disparity and social injustice in job accessibility and air quality in metropolitan areas, and the potential of transit-oriented development to promote social justice.
- Duration: 2016 - 2019
- UK PI: Dr Alex Hagen-Zanker; UK
- Co-I: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
Water - energy - nutrient nexus in the cities of the future
- EPSRC funded
- Duration: 2017 - 2019
- Surrey PI: Dr Devendra Saroj.
PEDALS: Particles and black carbon exposure to London and Sao Paulo bike-lane users
- Duration: 2017 - 2019
- FAPESP SPRINT funded
- Project PIs: Professor Prashant Kumar (Surrey) and Professor Maria de Fatima Andrade (Sao Paulo).
EM4fME: Emission models for fugitive particulate matter towards an online emission inventory for the Middle East area
The project aims to develop emission models for fugitive particulate matter for the Middle East region.
- Duration: 2015 - 2018
- UK PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Project PI: Dr Konstantinos E. Kakosimos (Texas A&M University, Qatar).
NEST-SEAS: Next-generation environmental sensing for local to global scale health impact assessment
The aims of this project are to develop a nesting methodology for integration of local urban scale pollution data into global/regional scale models.
- Duration: 2016 - 2017
- UK PI (coordinator): Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey)
- Project PI's: Professor Clare Murphy (University of Wollongong), Professor Yang Zhang (NCSU) and Professor Maria de Fatima Andrade (Sao Paulo).
Smart Cities network for sustainable urban futures (SMARTIES Net)
- ESRC funded
- Duration: 2016 - 2017
- Surrey PI: Dr Devendra Saroj.
RETINA: Reducing the impact of health and climate emissions in megacity Cairo
Through HEFCE under the Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF).
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar
- Collaborators: Dr Ahmed El-Gendy and Rana Alaa Abbas (GCARE PhD researcher).
Academic training grant on airborne nanoparticles
Through Commonwealth Academic Fellowship to host Professor (and Head of Department) Suresh Jain from TERI University (India) at Surrey.
- Duration: 2016 - 2017
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
Covid-19 research
We are drawing on our extensive experience in air quality to support the fight against Covid-19. In collaboration with partners around the world, we are part of the international effort making a case for the recognition of airborne transmission.
Surrey green infrastructure research development for storm water and air quality
- Duration: 2015 - 2017
- UGPN Funded with NCSU
- Surrey Co-I: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
CAPTEN: Comparison of air pollution in transportation environments
Development and demonstration based on selected UK and US cities.
- Duration: 2014 - 2016
- UGPN Funded with NCSU
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
eRAIN: Missions and role of fine aerosol particles in formation of clouds and precipitation
A demonstration study for the megacity, São Paulo.
- Duration: 2014 - 2016
- UGPN funded with University of Sao Paulo
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
Experimental and numerical analysis of traffic emitted nanoparticle dispersion at urban traffic hotspots
- Duration: 2013 – 2016
- Commonwealth Commission funded
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
BIOBURN: Towards the treatment of aerosol emissions from biomass burning in chemical transport models through a case study in the metropolitan area of São Paulo
- Duration: 2015 - 2016
- UGPN Funded with NCSU (USA) and Sao Paulo University (Brazil)
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
Characteristics of airborne nanoparticles during summertime in Kuwait
- Duration: 2012 - 2015
- Kuwait Government and KISR PhD fellowship
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
10 Santander staff and mobility awards
10 Santander staff and mobility awards: Two with Tufts University; one with MIT, USA; three with Peking University; one with Tsinghua University; three with University of Sao Paulo.
- Duration: 2012 – 2015
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey.
Experimental and computational analysis of the dispersion of nanoparticles in transport microenvironments
- Duration: 2010 - 2014
- EPSRC DTA Grant
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
Multi-scale evaluation of advanced technologies for capturing the CO2: Chemical looping applied to solid fuels
- Duration: 2011 - 2014
- UK-China EPSRC Grant: EP/I010912/1
- Surrey PI: Professor Prashant Kumar.
Developing collaborative strategy for carrying out measurements, dispersion modelling and assessing heath impacts due to vehicle–induced airborne ultrafine particles and contributing to the development of wind tunnel capabilities in India
UKIERI project from British Council with IIT Delhi, India.
- Duration: 2011 - 2013
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
UK-India Education and Research Initiative
British Council, India; with IIT Roorkee and Delhi, India; Indian partner lead bid.
- Duration 2012 - 2013
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).
Understanding dispersion of nanoparticles in vehicle wake combining fast response measurements and wind tunnel simulations
- Duration: 2010 - 2011
- EPSRC EP/HO26290/1
- PI: Professor Prashant Kumar (University of Surrey).