ARCC Coordination Network
The ARCC Coordination Network (ACN) exists to enhance the cooperative development and dissemination of research between and beyond a portfolio of EPSRC-funded research projects exploring the impacts and adaptation in a changing climate within the built environment and infrastructure, including transport, water resource and energy systems.
Funded by the EPSRC, this integrating network was established in January 2009 to:
- facilitate collaboration between research projects and with the broader research community;
- promote stakeholder and researcher participation;
- maximise the potential benefits of the research to all end users through broadening engagement and targeted dissemination;
- facilitate the further exploration of related knowledge and knowledge gaps.
The projects currently involved in the Network have originated in four distinct stages. LUCID and SCORCHIO started in 2007 in response to an EPSRC call for climate change research into the urban environment. CREW was funded as a result of the EPSRC IDEAS factory call for coping with extreme weather events and started in 2008. The third stage of projects were funded under the 2007 EPSRC call on the use of probabilistic climate scenarios in adaptation decisions within the building sector: the five projects, COPSE, DOWNPIPE, PROMETHEUS, PROCLIMATION and Low Carbon Future began in mid- to late 2008.
The next six projects, ARCADIA, ARCC-Water, BIOPICCC, DeDeRHECC, FUTURENET and SNACC, started in 2009 and come under the ARCC programme which was developed as part of Living with Environment Change (LWEC) – a ten-year programme to provide decision makers with information to manage and protect vital ecosystem services. LWEC will improve tools and knowledge needed to build resilience, mitigate problems and adapt to environmental change and the ARCC research relates to the LWEC strategic objective:
"To make infrastructure, the built environment and transport systems resilient to environmental change and develop more sustainable, less energy-intensive systems and approaches that are socially acceptable, economically advantageous and more environmentally harmonious"
In early 2011, the five-year ITRC project started followed later in the year by three projects addressing the challenges faced by the energy generation and distribution networks: RESNET, ARIES and Coastal Energy Supply. These projects are funded by the EPSRC as part of their contribution to the RCUK Energy Programme.
The ARCC CN programme builds on the earlier EPSRC/UKCIP programme; Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate (BKCC) and the subsequent knowledge transfer and networking activity Sustaining Knowledge for a Changing Climate (SKCC).
