DESCRIPTION OF THE ORGANIZATION AND ITS ACTIVITY

CIRIAF is an inter-university research which was founded in 1997 by the University of Perugia and University of Roma Tre. University of Florence, Pisa, L'Aquila, Rome "La Sapienza" and Polytechnic of Bari have later joined the agreement. The administrative seat of the Centre is at the University of Perugia. Actually the members of the Scientific Council of CIRIAF are more than 100 from 14 different Universities.
Mission and objectives of the Centre are: to promote research, both theoretical and practical, in the field of pollution from physical agents and its effects on the environment, the territory and its social-economic implications; to favour the exchange of information and equipment among research units with universities and the main public and private research centres (CNR, ENEA); to foster activities for the participation in international research programmes; to stimulate the development of these studies, promote initiatives and cooperation within the sector.
The initial activities of the Centre focused on noise and electromagnetic pollution, but in the years the fields of interest enlarged to include sustainable development and environmental impact assessment, renewable energies, energy planning, energy saving in buildings, sustainable mobility.
CIRIAF's laboratories at the University of Perugia are one of the main scientific and technical resources of the Faculty of Engineering. The facilities include coupled reverberation rooms for acoustic measurements, a hot box apparatus to measure the thermal properties of building materials and components, infrared cameras and microclimatic sensors for buildings monitoring. CIRIAF may also have access to the laboratories of all the Universities participating in the agreement. CIRIAF's staff members are researchers and engineers specialized in the field of energy, thermal management, environment, innovative transportation systems, pollution control and medicine.
Besides all the activities strictly related to studying, monitoring and controlling environmental pollution, CIRIAF has also promoted and directed many scientific national relevant projects in the energy field (molten carbonate fuel-cells, renewable energies and energy efficiency in buildings, hydrogen vector).
In the last years the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Communications have signed various agreement with CIRIAF for scientific and technical counselling on acoustic and electromagnetic pollution, on noise reduction and exploitation of renewable sources.