The Energy and Climate Change Division organised and hosted the 3rd International Conference on Evolving Cities (ICEC 2022) on the 13th-15th July 2022 at the newly built University of Southampton Centenary Building (B100) situated within the Highfield Campus at the University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. Building on the success of ICEC 2021 and ICEC 2019, ICEC 2022 had over 150 delegates who participated both online and in-person.
In the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27 conference in Egypt), ICEC 2022 brought together leading academics, policy-makers, regional and non-governmental organisations and the private sector to debate the major role of cities in tackling the climate crisis and accelerating the transition to net-zero carbon. These issues were reflected in the conference themes below.
Over the course of the three days of the ICEC2022, there were 11 keynotes, 48 oral presentations and 10 posters by delegates from over 60 international and national organisations. Session topics covered planning and policy, low carbon comfort, artificial intelligence, modelling and local/community/municipal responses and solutions to sustainability targets. Participants were able to discuss ways to develop multi-stakeholder partnerships and implement innovative solutions to propel our cities towards healthier and low carbon pathways.
Alongside the main conference sessions, ICEC hosted a Residential Heating Forum to discuss available engineering solutions for residential heating, considering aspects such as housing typology, scalability, inclusivity and the impact on energy networks. This was undertaken by a panel representing the Centre for Sustainable Energy, Hampshire County Council, Switched on Portsmouth and the Environment Centre (tEC).
Conference Awards
A closing award ceremony took place with five sponsored awards. The gold rating for the best presentation award (sponsored by the Open access Journal Energies) was awarded to Eleonora Baccega, from University of Ferrara, for her presentation ‘Improvement of building envelope performance through phase change materials (PCMs): Results of experimental activities’. The silver and bronze rating awards, sponsored by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, were awarded to Maria Jangstenfrom Chalmers University of Technology for her presentation on ‘District Cooling – assessment of price models supporting the efficiency’’ and Gregory Sewell, University of Southampton for his presentation on ‘Utilising children as agents of change to reduce heating use in domestic dwellings’. Two poster prizes, Best Poster and Best Poster Pitch Video, also sponsored by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, were awarded to Rebecca Presswood, University of Southampton for ‘Stainless steel composite beams for sustainable bridge construction’ and to Amblessed Akam and Breanna Vekeria ,both from University of Southampton, for their poster pitches entitled ‘A specification for a low-cost housing solution for the slum community in Bargia, Lagos’ and ‘Investigation of a pure hydrogen pipeline for the Solent region’.
Conference abstracts
The conference abstracts will be compiled in an ICEC 2022 book of abstracts which will be published shortly. Abstract authors are invited to submit their papers for the ICEC 2022 conference proceedings and also special issues of the supporting journals.
Click here to view the ICEC 2022 photo gallery, with photos form the presentation sessions, poster exhibition, residential heating workshop and networking. A sample of the reflections on ICEC 2022 are shown below, with more videos available at https://evolvingcities.org/icec-2022-reflections/.
For further information about ICEC 2022 and future conferences see evolvingcities.org.
