Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Infrastructure

Our Living Lab and Urban Observatory form part of a £3.1m UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) project. The new Net Zero Airport project will support steps to decarbonise aviation and is part of the Urban Observatory. The funding will enable further expansion of the sensor network, supporting the development of an airport 'digital twin' and a net zero sensor testbed. An example activity in this project looked at drone noise.

Education

Specific education programmes begun in 2021/22 included Protecting Critical National Infrastructure, which outlines current risks to critical infrastructure and key resources posed by terrorism and related threats; and Risk, Crisis and Resilience.

Research

Specific research projects addressing sustainable cities and communities included:

• Defragmenting the fragmented urban landscape (DEFRAG), which aims to connect the green and blue spaces that support biodiversity and ecosystem functioning for healthier, more resilient towns and cities.
• Mobility as a service (MaaS) develops the concept of a user unified service that combines various forms of transport at a single gateway. If successful, the project will lead to reduction of traffic congestion, improvement of customer convenience, reduction of social inequalities and carbon emissions by fostering the use of public transport.
• Integrating drones in urban airspaces – in the near future city-dwellers can expect to see a variety of drones in the airspace above where they live, perhaps transporting patients to hospitals, helping tackle fires, or simply delivering parcels. This vision of urban air mobility (UAM), making use of different types of drones, will also help people travel faster and more efficiently through unmanned air taxis – and researchers say it will be in place in a matter of a few years.
• A new European project, AMU-LED, is now carrying out co-ordination and substantial testing to manage this airspace traffic and check safety, interoperability and feasibility. The first trial demonstration took place at Cranfield University on 30 June, and will be followed by other trial events in the Netherlands and Spain.

Outreach

Our Sustainability Network series included a webinar focused on citizens and their needs.

Siqi Xu, a Cranfield student on the WIRe doctoral training programme, participated in the 2022 Milton Keynes Soapbox Science event where she spoke to the public about her research on sewage sludge.

New businesses

CorrosionRADAR, originally spun out by a Cranfield PhD student, went from strength to strength in 2021/22. The company’s vision is to provide owners of critical infrastructure in the energy industry with the data they need to proactively manage their corrosion challenges and make well informed decisions with regards to the integrity of their assets.

Our aim is to provide a sustainable environment in which to live and work, both at the University campuses and other areas affected or influenced by our activities.

See our policies and plans for a sustainable community.

Cranfield's major refurbishments and new buildings are constructed with Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM)'s standards in mind.

Our 'Masterplan' is available for staff to view on our intranet. It sets out the framework for any long-term investment in infrastructure.

Examples of new facilities opened in 2021 and built with BREEAM's standards in mind include DARTeC, a new facility to help drive forward innovations in digital airspace and airport infrastructure that will help the UK reach its target of net zero carbon emissions and support industry to bounce back from Covid-19; a new agri-informatics facility that will play a vital role in bringing forward digital innovations in agriculture; a leading national water science facility, the Water Science Building, funded by government through UKCRIC (the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities) and Cranfield University; and a new forensic science ‘centre of excellence’ provides facilities in crime scene investigation, digital forensic investigation and forensic materials analysis, amongst others.