The AD[A]PT Consortium seeks to:

Create more opportunities for arts and humanities research focussed on helping built environment professionals achieve healthier places.

Address the paucity of funded opportunities for doctoral research that addresses topics of relevance to the disciplines of Architecture, the Built Environment and Planning.

Foster emerging research - industry - academic connections to provide greater conduits for research findings to influence practitioners, policy and day-to-day decision-making in the construction industry.

Even the playing field for prospective candidates from recruitment to during studies and levels of attainment, in order to address the disparities in representation and inclusion in the doctoral landscape.

Create a strong cohort identity for our doctoral students around a shared research goal.

Provide a creative and nurturing environment for doctoral researchers to develop and thrive.

Healthier Places for a Healthier People and Planet. 

Designed, altered and shaped by architects, planners and other built environment professionals, our 'lived-in' environment underpins our existence and affects the health and wellbeing of all living entities, for good or ill.

A focus on the creation of healthy places is an effective route to a healthier people and a healthier planet.

Improving the lived-in environment, and the way it is perceived by its users, can in turn positively improve physical wellbeing, social cohesion and enable communities to become more resilient.

Despite decades of research giving us clear guidance on what kinds of designs better support health, a  theory-practice gap persists, meaning delivering healthy places through design and adaptation is the exception rather than the norm.

Our research agenda focuses on the amplified impacts the decisions of built environment professionals can have on efforts to reverse the trajectory towards climate breakdown and catastrophic biodiversity loss.

In the face of these complex, parallel existential crises we need new ways to confront barriers that built environment professionals experience when attempting to deliver healthier places supporting a healthier planet and healthier lives.

AD[A]PT has the capacity to realise our ambition to harness the potential of humanities and design-based methodologies towards innovative processes to rethink pre-existing tired, rigid ways of working.

Oxford Brookes University (Brookes), Cardiff University (Cardiff) and Falmouth University (Falmouth), will provide 20 doctoral students the opportunity to address this theory-practice gap while enjoying the full breadth of possible student experiences from a Russell Group, a post-92 polytechnic and a Small Specialist Institution

Our students will be able to chart their own path through the doctoral training opportunities across our three universities, or Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), our partner organisations (non-HEIs), the AD[A]PT Consortium Specific Activities which will involve in person 2-3 day workshops and Annual Conferences over the course of their studies.