“Shaping Light for Health and Wellbeing in Cities” - ENLIGHTENme International Conference a great success
Eurice would like to draw your attention to the first international conference that was hosted by the EU project ENLIGHTENme on 16-17 December 2021. Titled "Shaping light for health and wellbeing in cities", the virtual event brought together more than 100 participants from academia, industry and local administration from across Europe, the USA and Australia.
High-profile introductions by project coordinator Prof. Simona Tondelli of the University of Bologna, Prof. Russell Foster of Oxford University and Lucy Kimbell of the University of the Arts, London, set the stage for the two days of sharing knowledge and results on theory, methodology and applications about the multifaceted consequences indoor and outdoor lighting have on health and wellbeing in cities.
Nearly 30 academic papers were presented and discussed under the themes:
'Social lighting and lighting technology for urban wellbeing'
'Artificial lighting and its implications for health, wellbeing, and circadian rhythm'
'Urban analytics and innovative urban lighting policies for health and wellbeing'
'Ethical legal and social aspects of urban lighting and related health studies'.
The conference highlighted how urban lighting constitutes a multidisciplinary topic that draws from several disciplines such as clinical and biomedical sciences, ethics and Responsible Research & Innovation, urban planning and architecture, data accessibility and interoperability, as well as social sciences and economics, all of which provide complementary yet also conflicting insights for further exploration. A key takeaway from the presentations and discussions was the importance of transferring research into practice: while various tools, clinical studies and ethics principles, among others, have produced invaluable results, the leap from this research into urban policies still requires a conscious and joint effort of all actors and disciplines. This is the aim and challenge of the ENLIGHTENme project.
Therefore, the insights and cutting-edge developments shared during the lively and engaging sessions of this conference will greatly contribute to the further success of ENLIGHTENme.
Recordings of the individual conference sessions are freely accessible on the ENLIGHTENme YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXUWfpcHRokIY7VaGSu3ohw
More on the conference can be found on the dedicated website https://www.enlightenme-project-conference.com.
About ENLIGHTENme
Bringing together experts from different scientific fields and sectors such as urban development and health research, the ENLIGHTENme project aims to collect evidence about the impact outdoor and indoor lighting has on human health – especially in elderly people who are known to be particularly prone to suffer circadian misalignment. Moreover, ENLIGHTENme sets out to develop and test innovative solutions and policies that will offset health inequalities in European cities. Please read more on the project at https://enlightenme-project.eu/
On top of project management activities, our dedicated team here at Eurice is part of the ENLIGHTENme project in the areas of communication of the project activities and developments, as well as the dissemination and exploitation of project results to maximise the project impact. Currently, Eurice is involved in conceptualising and guiding the communication activities for the recruitment of the participants for the ENLIGHTENme lighting study.
