Liverpool had the expertise. What it needed was a shared table.
By summer 2023, air quality work in Liverpool already crossed environmental science, paediatrics, transport, civic data and local policy. The problem was that those conversations did not always happen together.
The first Roundtable was designed to fix that. The event brought around 50 guests together and deliberately mixed academic presentations with local authority, health, charity, data and industry perspectives.
The structure mattered. The morning established the evidence. The afternoon then moved into facilitated questions about the future of research and the role industry should play in reducing pollution.
That format — evidence first, difficult questions second — became part of the identity of every Roundtable that followed.
Air quality is not owned by one organisation. The first event was built around the idea that meaningful change needs environmental measurements, clinical evidence, local government, transport, community experience, technology and public communication to work together.
Six perspectives. Two big debates.
Not “who has the answer?” — “what do we need to solve together?”
Where should air quality research go next?
The panel explored priority research gaps, emerging challenges and the questions that Liverpool could answer particularly well.
Can new data change decisions?
Participants discussed sensors, analytics and new ways of seeing air quality at finer spatial and temporal scales.
How do we connect systems?
The discussion explicitly linked environmental change, public health outcomes and the need for collaboration across institutions.
What responsibility sits with business?
The second panel examined sectors contributing to pollution, regulation, competitiveness and practical examples of lower-emission practice.
How do people become participants?
Rather than simply publishing findings, the event asked how communities could shape priorities and act on the evidence.
How does a conversation become a programme?
The day also considered how partnerships, policy and funding could turn isolated projects into sustained city capability.
The connections began turning into projects.
The significance of 2023 was not a single announcement. It was the change in how the work was organised.
University impact planning later described the first event as bringing around 50 guests together, including local government, the Combined Authority, health partners, charities, consultants and researchers. The same planning documents show the Roundtable being used as a springboard for collaborations around public transport, city data, digital twinning, asthma and environmental monitoring.
By the following year, the question had shifted. The Roundtable was no longer simply asking how Liverpool should research air pollution. It was asking how exposure affects children in real homes, schools, vehicles and neighbourhoods — and who has responsibility for improving it.
Continue to 2024 →The network existed before the Roundtable.
By 2023, the event was already sitting on several years of sensing and exposure research.
Prototype sensor work had begun in 2019. The 2021 Breathing City project had connected residential monitoring with Alder Hey and paediatric respiratory disease. Two 2022 studies had shown why mobility and meteorology matter when interpreting pollution. And in 2023, work with Alder Hey was already mapping particulate matter alongside paediatric asthma emergency activity.
The first Roundtable therefore did something important: it connected a technical research programme with the people who could challenge it, use it and widen it.