On 3rd July the Innovation Exchange Group came together for a session around ‘Leveraging the Knowledge’. A roundtable was held with members of industry and academia to explore how to build better links between the two in order to bring about innovation in construction.
The roundtable was facilitated by Innovation Exchange Group Chair, Ben Pritchard from Innvent, and included:
- Dr Jo Morgan, Design Manager, SPECIFIC, University of Swansea
- Robert Hill, Director of Innovation, Commercialisation and Grant Support, Rothamsted Research
- Tom Bassett, Research Lead, BRE
- Nick Podevyn, Innovation & Improvement Manager, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd
- Kelly Harrison, Director, Whitby Wood
Challenges
The discussion delved into the challenges preventing industry and academia from working more collaboratively across construction rather than in isolated pockets of innovation and research. Some of the challenges raised were:
- knowing where to go and who to speak to when a collaborative opportunity presents itself.
- differences in what each side of the partnership wants to get out of potential projects.
- knowing what organisations actually do, ensuring contact is made with the right people.
- There’s no one place to go to see what research has already been done to then take it and apply it/build upon it.
- Research led by specific organisations could lead to bias. There’s no single source of truth because we’re all trying to overcome the same challenges but from our own commercial perspectives.
How Do We Do Better?
Considering the challenges facing potential collaborations, how can we change our practice to make this easier and more effective?
- The creation of a hub or library of existing research would benefit those looking to solve a particular problem in finding what’s already been done and moving forward from there.
- Research outcomes need to be more visible to wider industry. Funders, such as Innovate UK, are good at this as they require findings to be disseminated to enable benefits across construction.
- Be sure we are clear on the challenge we’re trying to address and the impact pathway following the research.
- Set up clear collaboration agreements. Establishing a common understanding across partners prevents problems and ensures clarity.
- Companies need to research who/what research organisations would be best placed support them with their specific problem. The right connections are out there but we need to look…
“Companies are best placed to define the challenges that they want to overcome”
Robert Hill, Rothamsted Research
Advice For Industry
Participants of the roundtable were asked what advice they would give to the industry to support better, more effective, use of research outcomes and providers moving forward.
- Be clear on the challenge you want to overcome, find the right expert.
- Data management. There are lots of pools of data, how can we analyse this, sift it get the important info and connect the different pieces of data across the industry.
- Communication. A lot research has been done and is really useful but it needs to be better shared, communicated and marketed to enable use to learn from each other.
- Often industry standard software doesn’t have enough information to use effectively, we need to manage and share information better.
- Safety in construction. Thought improvements have been made in this area, there are still way too many accidents, incidents, near misses, fatalities. We need more work on the behavioural aspects of this to move forward.
Get Involved
Our Innovation Exchange group is but one of the Constructing Excellence groups, focusing in different areas across the industry. Why not take a look at our Groups page or explore our upcoming events to get involved.
