Construction research in a COVID-19 world - workshop

This jointly organised UKCRIC and CIRIA workshop will be hosted on 9 February 2021 (10:00-12:30) via Zoom. 

Your opportunity to inform academic research across a wide consortium of UK universities. Background UKCRIC (the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities) is an integrated research capability with a mission to underpin the renewal, sustainment and improvement of infrastructure and cities in the UK and elsewhere. About-UKCRIC. Spanning 15  UK universities, it represents a considerable spectrum of skills, data and knowledge. Last year, in the initial phases of COVID-lockdown, UKCRIC convened a workshop which considered some of the challenges and lessons that COVID has presented and how this affects future research needs. The workshop considered five themes:  - Construction markets and approaches - Energy - Urban density (including repurposing buildings and   provision of (communal) amenity space) - Water, waste and resources - Transport and mobility

This interactive virtual event organised jointly organised by UKCRIC and CIRIA will provide the opportunity to revisit the first of these themes in more detail, particularly in light of further experience of dealing with the virus over the past nine months.  

Focussing on the medium- to long-term needs (2-5 years) of the construction industry, the event will consider:

- How COVID-19 exposed weaknesses in the resilience of the construction process, e.g. supply chains, social-distancing, remote teams etc. and how these are influencing thinking in terms of the medium- and long-term direction of the sector.
- Whether and how COVID influences the approach to or the pace of change being deployed to pre-existing industry transformational strategies including: digital construction, decarbonisation, the circular economy, off-site manufacture and other modern methods of construction such as 3D printing.
- How COVID has underlined the need for greater multi-disciplinary and international research.

The outcome of this event will help test some of the emerging themes from UKCRIC and also contribute views on research needs that will help influence the direction of this powerful academic consortium to help keep the UK at the forefront of research in infrastructure and cities.

The meeting will include introductory presentations from UKCRIC, Network Rail, Costain, Arup and BuildOffsite. 

To register your interest to attend email Jack Young at CIRIA.