Clean Air Programme

Under the Strategic Priorities Fund, the Met Office co-led the £42.5m programme across two waves with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Together we worked in partnership with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council (MRC), the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the Government Office for Science (GO-Science), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and the Department for Transport (DfT).

Air pollution is responsible for up to 40,000 early deaths and a cost of up to £20 billion to health services and businesses per year in the UK.

The programme was intended to better predict exposure to air pollution and its effects on vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly, and catalyse innovation in technology, business models and policy best practice.

Wave 1 of the programme investigated the links between emissions, atmospheric processes, air quality, its impacts and policy action. By improving our ability to understand current and future changes in sources, emissions and atmospheric processes, researchers aimed to develop improved understanding, analysis and predictive capability from a local to international scale.

The programme supported multidisciplinary research and innovation to stimulate solutions for clean air through predictive understanding of future air quality challenges, a systems approach to analysis, new technologies and innovative policy and practical interventions to benefit vulnerable groups, improve public health and support clean growth.

Learn more about the wave 1 programme in our Science Plan.

Wave 2 of the programme deployed a nationally co-ordinated multidisciplinary community to help tackle more proactively the new air pollution challenges from 2025. The work was focused on indoor and outdoor air quality and the links between them. It involved further research on fine scale outdoor air quality as well as indoor sources, their chemistry and other processes. 

Through the programme, teams from climate, science and health sectors identified practical and usable solutions to air pollution to help policy makers and business protect health, and work towards a cleaner economy. This included projects to understand current and future air pollution, along with networks that join together researchers and industry.

Learn more on the Clean Air programme website.

If you have an enquiry about the Clean Air Programme, please contact us.