HEARTH Annual Assembly 2026
Updated: 22 hours ago
Building Heat Resilience: From Evidence to Action
Last week, we brought together researchers, policymakers, public health and healthcare professionals, built-environment practitioners and international experts at Oxford Brookes University for the HEARTH Annual Assembly 2026.
Across 7–9 September, the Assembly provided an important opportunity to reflect on progress across the National Hub on Net Zero, Health and Extreme Heat (HEARTH), share emerging evidence, learn from international experience, and consider how research can be translated into practical action, policy and longer-term impact.
The Assembly opened with our International Symposium – Building Heat Resilience: From Evidence to Action, attended by nearly 60 participants from academia, the NHS and public health, national and local government, housing, industry and the built-environment sector. The Symposium began with opening remarks from Professor Helen Laville, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, setting the scene for a day focused on building heat resilience and moving from evidence to action.
The programme moved from the challenge of climate change and health, through international learning and evidence across housing, hospitals and care homes, to the critical question of how we translate research into policy and practice. The day concluded with a panel asking: what should our priorities now be for Net Zero, Health and Extreme Heat?
We were particularly pleased to welcome three international researchers, Professor Holly Samuelson (MIT, USA), Professor Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) and Professor Ashok Lall (India), whose perspectives helped us look beyond the UK and consider what can be learnt from different climatic, cultural and policy contexts.
A strong message from the Symposium was that extreme heat must be treated as a public health and resilience issue, not simply as a question of thermal comfort or energy performance. There is no single solution: passive cooling, appropriate mechanical cooling, behavioural adaptation, better communication and wider urban interventions all have roles to play. We also need better ways of connecting building conditions and environmental exposure with health, wellbeing and vulnerability.
Day 2 included case-study visits to care homes, followed by our second HEARTH External Advisory Board meeting, chaired by Professor Isabel Oliver (Chief Medical Officer for Wales). The Board challenged us to develop better heat-risk metrics, investigate practical low-energy interventions, build the evidence on cost-effectiveness, and maximise opportunities for policy and international impact.
Our two-day HEARTH Project Team Meeting then brought the consortium together around the five research workstreams: climate and weather scenarios; local outdoor environmental factors; indoor heat exposure, health inequalities and vulnerable settings; health impacts of mitigation and adaptation strategies; and future climate adaptation and mitigation interventions.
We also looked forward: developing the HEARTH Theory of Change, strengthening stakeholder engagement and PPIE, supporting our Early Career Researchers, exploring links between ARCHI and HEARTH, and discussing the Hub's future priorities, impact and legacy.
A huge thank you to everyone who presented, chaired sessions, participated in discussions and case-study visits, and travelled to Oxford to join us. Particular thanks to our international researchers, our External Advisory Board, our HEARTH partners and the wider community of stakeholders who continue to support the Hub.
There is a great deal still to do, but the HEARTH Annual Assembly 2026 reinforced the value of bringing different disciplines, sectors and perspectives together around a shared challenge: how we protect health and build resilience as extreme heat becomes an increasingly important part of our changing climate.
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