The Big Ideas: Sustained Competitiveness in the UK Construction Sector - A Fresh Perspective
Start Date: April 2005
End Date: July 2008
Project Status: Completed
Loughborough, Salford and Reading IMRCs join forces on this £1.5m collaborative research project. The project engages relevant expertise within the centres including extensive industry networks. The project is positioned at the interface of three principal research areas: human-centred systems; working for wealth; and engineering and science for sustainability. The broad aim of the project is to readdress the competitiveness research agenda from an alternative perspective. The project will also serve to strengthen existing links between the centres and direct a concerted effort towards matching research expertise with contemporary industry concerns. It further avoids duplication of effort and hence maximising research impact particularly on delivering novel, competitive and relevant research outputs fully embedded within the research discourse and concern of the UK construction industry.
The research methodology will follow emerging multi-methodology design building on the elaborate tradition of the three centres into socio-technical systems analysis. The research methods will include system dynamics, soft system methodology, cognitive mapping, Dephi approach, scenario planning and cross-impact analysis.
The project will serve the main aims of reconnecting the competitiveness research agenda with the unfolding reality of the construction sector; developing an appropriate research strategy and agenda for change for the next ten years to ensure that the resulting outputs are in place and ripe for exploitation when needed; and combining a grounded analysis of current and future industry trends with the identification of key drivers and potential scenarios all set within the dynamic context of competitiveness.
Big Ideas website: www.thebigideas.org.uk