Technical papers exploring housing retrofits, methods used to select data for weather files, sustainable insulation materials and a comparison of EPC methodologies were recognised with CIBSE awards.
The winning papers, which appeared in Building Services Engineering Research & Technology (BSER&T) journal in 2025, were presented with awards at the CIBSE President’s Awards Dinner in October.
The Brian Moss Fan Makers Award was awarded to Dr May Zune for the ongoing development of their work on housing retrofit and behavioural IEQ.
The Award, which launched last year, grants a bursary of £5,000 to support innovation and learning in building services and celebrates the legacy of CIBSE Past President Brian Moss OBE.
The other awards for technical papers were:
The Dufton Silver Medal for fundamental research in building services research and development was presented to authors Emmanouil Perisoglou, Miltiadis Ionas and Joanne Patterson for their paper Evaluating the performance of six 1970s off-gas deep retrofit bungalows.
This paper investigates the energy and environmental performance of six 1970s bungalows in South Wales following whole-house retrofits using both passive and low-carbon solutions, which were monitored over a three-year period.
The findings highlight the effectiveness of a holistic retrofit approach and the importance of monitoring real-world building performance.
The Barker Silver Medal for an outstanding paper on application and development was won by Eleonora Brembilla, John Mardaljevic and Matt Eames for their paper Daylight solar radiation AMY data derived from satellite remote sensing: validation against ground measurements and comparison with TMYs.
This paper investigates the reliability of standardised weather files (TMYs) used in building simulations by comparing them with 10 years of actual meteorological years (AMYs) across three European locations in London, Rome and Stockholm.
The findings reveal that the methods currently used to select solar radiation data for TMYs result in standardised weather files that do not faithfully represent actually occurring conditions over a recent decade, highlighting the need for more representative solar radiation data.
The Carter Bronze Medal for the most highly rated paper was awarded to Daniel Henk, Joni Wildman, Pete Walker and Andy Shea for their paper Extrinsic and intrinsic determinants of thermal conductivity in mycelium composites.
This paper investigates the thermal conductivity of myceliumbased composites, a sustainable alternative to traditional insulation materials used in construction. It reviews multiple properties that affect thermal conductivity by comparing measurement techniques.
The Napier Shaw Bronze Medal for the most highly rated research paper was awarded to Mahsa Sayfikar and David P Jenkins for their paper Energy performance certificate calculation methodologies across Europe and accommodating new performance indicators.
This paper offers a comparison of EPC methodologies across 10 European countries as a means to highlight the implications this has on assessing the performance gap. Next-generation EPCs will be encouraged with the introduction of new approaches via the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.
- CIBSE members can read the BSER&T free at www.cibse.org/knowledge