The barriers to creating healthier places-for people and the planet-will be investigated by a consortium of academic and industry partners, with support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
The Architectural Design and Humanities Promoting Transformation (AD[A]PT) consortium, will support 20 fully funded postgraduate studentships at three partnering universities, Oxford Brookes, Cardiff University and Falmouth University, starting from October 2026.
The consortium, led by Oxford Brookes, received the funding under the AHRC's inaugural Doctoral Focal Award.
The initiative aims to bridge the gap between research and practice in designing healthy places. Doctoral students will work on projects shaped in collaboration with a 13-member Industry Steering Group representing key sectors:
- Architecture, design and planning: Royal Institute of British Architects, Design Commission for Wales and Royal Town Planning Institute
- Heritage: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Historic England, Cadw
- Landscape: Landscape Institute
- Housing: Chartered Institute of Housing - Cymru
- Construction and engineering: Chartered Institute of Building, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
- Health and life enrichment: Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, and Circus Eruption
Studentships will be shared across the three universities, hosted within their respective schools of architecture, design and the built environment. Students will benefit from shared training and development opportunities across the consortium.
Around half of the studentships will be offered as Collaborative Doctoral Awards, which embed candidates within a partner organisation for part of their degree. This will ensure their research is both academically rigorous and grounded in real-world practice.
The students' collective research will focus on the real-world decisions made by built environment professionals, examining how these can help-or hinder-efforts to address the climate and biodiversity emergencies, improve safety and accessibility, and create more inclusive communities.
With the built environment responsible for up to 40% of global carbon emissions, the research will aim to specifically look at how built environment professionals can:
- Help meet the UN's sustainable development goals, and the UK government's commitments on net zero, and biodiversity net gain
- Exceed minimum standards in life, health and fire safety to ensure healthier populations
- Design places that are inclusive, accessible, and support biodiversity
Dr Emma Rowden, Lead of AD[A]PT and Postgraduate Research Tutor for Architecture at Oxford Brookes University, said: "Our built environment has a profound impact on human and planetary health. This exciting collaboration, involving many of the sector's most influential bodies, will empower arts and humanities-led researchers to tackle the systemic issues stopping us from routinely building healthier, more inclusive, and sustainable environments."
Dr Chris Whitman, Cardiff University AD[A]PT Institutional Lead and Lead of the Welsh School of Architecture's History, Heritage and Conservation Research and Scholarship Group, said: "These studentships acknowledge the important role that architectural humanities and design can play in understanding, and implementing solutions to the key issues facing today's society, including the climate and ecological emergency, social cohesion and community resilience.
"We are particularly excited about enabling the entry into postgraduate research for a diverse range of applicants who may not have previously thought it possible."
Carole-Anne Davies, Chief Executive at the Design Commission for Wales, added: "We are keen to play our role in the ADAPT project given that the design and delivery of places that support health and wellbeing are at the core of our placemaking objectives.
"The award allows a fresh creative, multi-perspective opportunity to shift barriers to shaping places that better address the needs of people. Removing barriers to a holistic approach is critical if current and future generations are to live well."
Oliver Urquhart-Irvine, Executive Director, Architecture Programmes and Collections, RIBA, said of the success of the collaboration: "This award is really fantastic news in every respect: scale, ambition, partners and value."
Recruitment for the studentships is expected to begin in October 2025, with the first cohort interviews likely to take place in early summer 2026.
