{"id":8130,"date":"2020-05-13T14:58:43","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T14:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/serg\/?p=8130"},"modified":"2020-05-14T11:25:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T11:25:05","slug":"serg-hosts-iea-energy-in-buildings-and-communities-symposium-and-expert-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/serg\/serg-hosts-iea-energy-in-buildings-and-communities-symposium-and-expert-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"SERG hosts IEA Energy in Buildings and Communities symposium and expert meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The <\/span>Energy and Climate Change Division (ECCD) and the Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG)<\/a> <\/span>within the School of Engineering at the University of Southampton, UK, hosted the International Energy Agency\u2019s (IEA) Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) Programme Symposium and Task Group meetings addressing Occupant-Centric Building Design and Operation (\u2018Annex 79\u2019) from 20-23 April 2020. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 4-day event took place virtually using a video and web conferencing platform. This was the first time the event was held online. The ease of attending virtually, facilitated by the Management Team, resulted in a record attendance of over 230 delegates from 25 countries and 82 institutions.<\/p>\n

\"Map<\/a>

Map of IEA Annex 79 attendees<\/p><\/div>\n

Leading academics, practitioners, policy-makers, manufacturers and students from the fields of engineering, architecture, psychology, sociology and marketing came together to exchange ideas and good practice. Creating and strengthening partnerships to integrate and implement occupancy and occupant behaviour into the design process of buildings and their operation, enhancing both energy performance and occupant comfort.<\/p>\n

The first two days of virtual meetings (20-21 April) comprised the 5th<\/sup> International Symposium, and a full programme<\/a> of six sessions, chaired jointly by Stephanie Gauthier<\/a> and AbuBakr Bahaj<\/a> of ECCD (Fig 2). With the various presentations and question and answer sessions covering cutting-edge research from around the world, including topics as diverse as building simulation, teleworking, \u2018big data\u2019 modelling, nudges and behaviour change, introducing a range of case studies and academic approaches to the attendees.<\/p>\n

The Symposium presentations can be downloaded as a PDF<\/a> with recordings of the presentations and question and answer sessions available here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The final two days (22-23 April) was dedicated to the 4th<\/sup> IEA EBC Annex 79 Expert Meeting (Fig 3). These expert meetings discussed, planning and pursuing research activities and initiatives for the five year Annex 79 across the four sub-tasks:<\/p>\n