Over 4 million hospital patients acquire a healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in the EU each year. Moreover, the global crisis of antimicrobial resistance means that HAI is posing an increasing cost and risk of mortality. There is clear evidence that airflow controls the dispersion and exposure to airborne pathogens and determines the contamination of critical surfaces in the human-centric climate (HCC), which is defined as the microenvironment which surrounds and is close to a human body. This points to a significant need for innovation in healthcare indoor environments to tackle the challenge of infection control, while improving thermal comfort and energy efficiency in hospitals. To achieve this, we must both advance the fundamental understanding of how people are exposed to airborne pathogens and develop new tools and techniques to enable effective design and operation of healthcare environments. Specifically, there is a need to understand better the local influence of airflows on particles in HCC; quantify the transient behaviour of airflows and contaminants due to healthcare activities like surgery; develop methods for optimising and adapting ventilation systems to control for risks in different environments like operation rooms and isolation rooms; and develop tools to enable real-time interaction with environments during design and operational phases. Bringing together 8 leading academic teams, 4 healthcare facilities and 8 HVAC industry partners, the HumanIC network aims to build a new approach to hospital environmental design through the concept of HCC and the training of 15 Early Career Stage Researchers to address these needs. HumanIC will create and disseminate fundamental and applied science to improve the knowledge base and innovate new technologies for designing and operating hospital ventilation and thermal systems and for reducing infection risk by at least 30%, meanwhile satisfying requirements of thermal comfort, safety and energy.

The ISIDORe consortium, made of the capacities of European ESFRI infrastructures and coordinated networks, proposes to assemble the largest and most diverse research and service providing instrument to study infectious diseases in Europe, from structural biology to clinical trials. Giving scientists access to the whole extent of our state of the art facilities, cutting edge services, advanced equipment and expertise, in an integrated way and with a common goal, will enable or accelerate the generation of new knowledge and intervention tools to ultimately help control SARS CoV 2 in particular, and epidemic prone pathogens in general, while avoiding fragmentation and duplication among European initiatives. Such a global and interdisciplinary approach is meant to allow the implementation of user projects that are larger, more ambitious and more impactful than the EU supported transnational activities that the consortium is used to run. Our proposition is ambitious but achievable in a timely fashion due to the relevance and previous experience of the partners that we have gathered and that have complementary fields of expertise, which addresses the need for an interdisciplinary effort. Leveraging all these existing strengths to develop synergies will create an additional value and enhance Europe capacity for controlling emerging or re emerging and epidemic infectious diseases, starting with the COVID 19 pandemic. Such a global and coordinated approach is consistent with the recommendations of the One Health concept and necessary to make significant contributions to solving complex societal problems like epidemics and pandemics.