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.