Abstract The radiative heat transfer coefficient at high temperatures is determined using a combination of experimental measurement and computational modeling. In the experimental part, cement mortar specimen is heated in a laboratory furnace to 600°C and the temperature field inside is recorded using built-in K-type thermocouples connected to a data logger. The measured temperatures are then used as input parameters in the three dimensional computational modeling whose objective is to find the best correlation between the measured and calculated data via four free parameters, namely the thermal conductivity of the specimen, effective thermal conductivity of thermal insulation, and heat transfer coefficients at normal and high temperatures. The optimization procedure which is performed using the genetic algorithms provides the value of the high-temperature radiative heat transfer coefficient of 3.64 W/(m²K).