黑洞社区

The government is to launch a series of competitions to pay construction firms to work together on blue-sky research and development as part of a drive to modernise construction.

Ann Bentley, global director of consultant RLB, and a member of the government鈥檚 Construction Leadership Council (CLC), told 黑洞社区 the plan for a series of competitions was part of a suite of measures designed to up the level of innovation in the construction industry.

The government has already announced a 拢72m investment in a 鈥渃ore innovation hub鈥� for UK construction, as well as a 拢36m 鈥渁ctive buildings centre鈥� as part of the 拢170m construction sector deal outlined in July.

Also read: Are specialist contractors the answer to construction鈥檚 innovation woes?

However, Bentley said the government was, in addition, shortly to announce collaborative research competitions, and the setting up of 鈥渋nnovation networks鈥� based around universities such as UCL, Imperial and Warwick to support smaller research projects.

Bentley said the collaborative research competitions would see the government look for teams of up to five organisations to come together to conduct research that would otherwise be too expensive. The government would then match-fund the total investment committed, with the results shared between the collaborators, meaning each individual firm would only have to make 10% of the investment it would otherwise incur to pursue the research itself.

Bentley said: 鈥淚f, for example, five cladding specialists came together and said 鈥榳e think there鈥檚 a better way to improve the thermal properties of what we do鈥�, it might normally be cost prohibitive to do it, even though it鈥檚 in the interest of all them that it gets done.

鈥淗ere government is essentially saying 鈥榶ou each put in 10% and we鈥檒l put in 50%. I think this could have really significant appeal to specialists.鈥�

Bentley said the reform of procurement she was undertaking for the CLC was also designed to 鈥渦nlock innovation鈥�. Rather than procuring contractors to build a fully designed scheme, Bentley said she was developing procurement targeting the whole-life performance and operational outcomes of buildings, which would give bidders more opportunity to propose different ways of approaching projects. 

This work, which she says follows a 鈥渟imilar mindset鈥� to the Institute of Civil Engineers鈥� Project 13 initiative for infrastructure procurement, will also see procurement models, software and training packages developed that enable it to be rolled out.