ENVI-met Award
The ENVI-met UNI LAB Award is an annual international award recognizing outstanding research and innovation in urban microclimate modelling with ENVI-met software.
Competetion goal. The goal of the award is to encourage worldwide students in the development of new and innovative ways to simulate, understand and predict urban climate.
Importance. The ENVI-met UNI LAB Award is influential because it recognizes excellence in research and applied work in the field of urban climate simulation. It also highlights the importance of urban climate research and its potential to help shape the future of cities and urban development.
Participants. Students of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning are welcome to participate. Projects can be developed individually or as a group, but all participants need to have been enrolled as students within the 12 months before the submission deadline.
Jury. The jury consists of a panel of experts from the fields of urban planning, architecture and climate adaptation. The jury will evaluate each participating project based on its relevance to the field of urban planning and climate adaptation, its innovative and technical quality, as well as its potential for real-world implementation.
Winner. The award is presented to the best scientific paper that uses ENVI-met software to explore the microclimate of urban and built environments. The paper should include innovative approaches and/or model applications.
Prize. The ENVI-met UNI LAB AWARD 2023 will reward the winning projects for 1st place: 750 EUR, 2nd place: 500 EUR and 3rd place: 250 EUR. Additionally, the winner will receive a one-year license of the ENVI-met model and be presented online.
Submission. Open for entries April 1, Deadline June 30, 2023 (23:59 CEST).

FAQ
Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions about the UNI LAB Award.
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No. We request participants to follow the conditions of the submission as indicated in our website. To ensure a transparent and fair participation for all, posters must only include the project´s name and avoid showing any kind of personal references. Personal information in the poster is unnecessary since your project will be judged based only on the results of your project.
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No, you can only participate in one project.
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No, the ENVI-met UNI LAB Award is an international student competition. You can be based anywhere in the world and submit a project pertaining any place worldwide.
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There is no specific time requirement on this, but you need to be sure that all participants have been enrolled as students within the 12 months before the submission deadline.
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Yes. If you submit a project as a group, all members must sign the application form and acknowledge they comply with the conditions of enrolment.
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You can use other software. However, as noted before, the way in which the projects use ENVI-met to conduct analysis and develop innovative solutions will be a key part of the evaluation. Therefore, it is expected that ENVI-met will be the primary software and tool used in your project.
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Yes, since this will be a key consideration to score projects. Our software is the result of almost 30 years of research and development and is the most validated climate modelling software in the world. More than 3,000 independent studies and technical publications have validated the scientific results obtained with it. The software is based on a holistic, three-dimensional microclimate model. It simulates the climatological interactions between surfaces, plants, and the atmosphere. In addition to generating microclimate calculations accurate down to a square-meter, ENVI-met also analyses the effects of planning measures on the urban climate.
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Click on our online form and provide the following information:
- Participant(s) name and contact information
- Entry title or project name
- Project details (year and location)
- Project description (500 words)
- Collaborator credits (optional)
- Client(s) name (optional)
- Once A2-sized poster (max. 10MB, landscape or portrait) including only the project´s title (no team´s or author´s name) plus an explanatory summary of the project in no more than 500 words.
- Minimum 5 pictures developed with ENVI-met and 1 representative photo or render of the place of analysis. This excludes graphs and tables – we suggest limiting the use of these in your poster.
You can find examples of the kind of pictures we appreciate in different sections of our website.
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You will receive email confirmation of receipt within 24 hours of submission. If you face any issues, please contact us on info@envi-met.com.
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No, in order to ensure the jury can fully understand and score your work, we require all information is provided in English.
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Yes, this is not a limitation, but you should ensure project participants own the work contained in the submission, and it must be free of third parties’ rights or an express permission has been granted by all respective right holders. ENVI-met GmbH reserves the right to edit the material provided by entrants in order to publishing the winning projects. Winners will be notified about this prior to publication. Published materials will be suitably attributed.
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Find below our key dates:
UNI LAB Award open for entries / April 1, 2023
Deadline / June 30, 2023 (23:59 CEST)
Announcement of winners / October 2023
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A creative and innovative approach could encompass different aspects, for instance the variety of numerical methods used, the design approach or the feasibility and level of impact of the solution beyond just solely addressing environmental challenges.
Key factors the jury will consider include:
- Methodology: an innovative, coherent and accurate approach to simulation, analysis and design
- Research by design: Innovation in seeking urban design strategies and nature-based solutions to address climate challenges and improve urban resilience
- Interdisciplinary thinking: Solutions which tackle issues from multiple angles or involve different fields of expertise – e.g linking climatic and microclimatic analysis to ecosystem quality, decarbonization and health
- Multi-scalar approach: solutions that apply on different scales – e.g. from the street scale to the city scale Communication clarity: Quality of visualization and communication of data and results to a wide, non-expert audience e.g. citizens, policy makers, civic organizations, businesses etc
- Sustainability and Science: Solutions which consider economic, cultural, social and environmental aspects and are sensitive to the local context and challenges
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The ENVI-met UNI LAB AWARD 2023 will reward the winning projects with a prize of 750 EUR for 1st place, 500 EUR for 2nd place and 250 EUR for third place.
The winners will be also featured with their project on our website and social media channels. As well winning students will receive feedback from the judges and a certificate, useful for CVs, LinkedIn, and similar purposes.
All these will contribute to your knowledge expansion and diffusion of your work in our international scientific and expert network.
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Unfortunately, due to the expected high volume of submissions we cannot offer individual comments to the submissions.
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The prizes will be paid electronically in euros. Any fees related to the delivery of the prices (e.g. transfer costs, exchange conversion fees) will be deducted from the final award amount received. Prize recipients are solely responsible for any tax or other obligations related to the prizes.
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Welcome to the ENVI-met UNI LAB AWARD 2023
Jury
Meet our four Judges

Richard De Dear
Emeritus Professor in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney where he is Director of the Indoor Environmental Quality Laboratory. He has been active in the research domain of IEQ for over forty years and is currently the most highly cited researcher in the peer reviewed literature on thermal comfort (SCOPUS).
He Co-Chairs the International Energy Agency’s (IEA-EBC) Annex 69 on Adaptive Thermal Comfort in Low Energy Buildings and is also Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization/ World Meteorological Organization Joint Climate and Health Office on Indoor Heat Risks to Human Health.

Carmen Galán-Marín
Architect and Professor/ Chair of Construction Technology and Sustainable Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Seville and Head of the SATH research group (Sustainability in Architecture, Technology and Heritage). Her research interests concentrate on low-carbon buildings and cities, urban climate, new materials and innovative technologies applied to architecture and construction, with special emphasis on environmental issues and sustainability.
At the present she is involved in projects to elaborate on predictive tools for urban climate adaptation linking different urban intervention strategies to the outdoor thermal comfort perception by citizens.

Jonathan Natanian
Architect and Assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Head of the Environmental Performance and Design Laboratory (EPDL). At EPDL he investigates the boundary between environmental engineering and architectural design to establish a bridge between those disciplines in a cross-contextual, multi-scale and cross-disciplinary way.
Since 2014 he is also leading StudioADAPT – a research-based consultancy through which he is exploring the architectural applicability and spatial expression of his research on environmental performance in practice.

Edward Ng
Architect and Yao Ling Sun Professor of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). His main research focus is on Green Building, Environmental and Sustainable Design, and in Urban Climatology for City Planning. At CUHK, he is an Associate Director of the Institute of Future Cities (IOFC) and the Team Leader of
Urban Sustainability and Public Health in the Institute of Energy, Environment and Sustainability (IEES). He has published over 400 papers and reports, including 3 books and twice received the International Award from the Royal Institute of British Architects, and has twice been given the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Jury Commendation for Innovation Award.