International Centre for Infrastructure Futures (ICIF)

Compared to many parts of the world, the UK has under-invested in its infrastructure in recent decades. It now faces many challenges in upgrading its infrastructure so that it is appropriate for the social, economic and environmental challenges it will face in the remainder of the 21st century. A key challenge involves taking into account the ways in which infrastructure systems in one sector increasingly rely on other infrastructure systems in other sectors in order to operate. These interdependencies mean failures in one system can cause follow-on failures in other systems. For example, failures in the water system might knock out electricity supplies, which disrupt communications, and therefore transportation, which prevent engineers getting to the original problem in the water infrastructure. These problems now generate major economic and social costs. Unfortunately they are difficult to manage because the UK infrastructure system has historically been built, and is currently operated and managed, around individual infrastructure sectors.

Because many privatised utilities have focused on operating infrastructure assets, they have limited experience in producing new ones or of understanding these interdependencies. Many of the old national R&D laboratories have been shut down and there is a lack of capability in the UK to procure and deliver the modern infrastructure the UK requires. On the one hand, this makes innovation risky. On the other hand, it creates significant commercial opportunities for firms that can improve their understanding of infrastructure interdependencies and speed up how they develop and test their new business models. This learning is difficult because infrastructure innovation is undertaken in complex networks of firms, rather than in an individual firm, and typically has to address a wide range of stakeholders, regulators, customers, users and suppliers. Currently, the UK lacks a shared learning environment where these different actors can come together and explore the strengths and weaknesses of different options. This makes innovation more difficult and costly, as firms are forced to 'learn by doing' and find it difficult to anticipate technical, economic, legal and societal constraints on their activity before they embark on costly development projects.

The Centre will create a shared, facilitated learning environment in which social scientists, engineers, industrialists, policy makers and other stakeholders can research and learn together to understand how better to exploit the technical and market opportunities that emerge from the increased interdependence of infrastructure systems. The Centre will focus on the development and implementation of innovative business models and aims to support UK firms wishing to exploit them in international markets. The Centre will undertake a wide range of research activities on infrastructure interdependencies with users, which will allow problems to be discovered and addressed earlier and at lower cost. Because infrastructure innovations alter the social distribution of risks and rewards, the public needs to be involved in decision making to ensure business models and forms of regulation are socially robust. As a consequence, the Centre has a major focus on using its research to catalyse a broader national debate about the future of the UK's infrastructure, and how it might contribute towards a more sustainable, economically vibrant, and fair society.

Beneficiaries from the Centre's activities include existing utility businesses, entrepreneurs wishing to enter the infrastructure sector, regulators, government and, perhaps most importantly, our communities who will benefit from more efficient and less vulnerable infrastructure based services.

The outputs from the Centre address real-world problems in both the public and private sectors. To this end, our work streams on 'Innovative Business Models' and 'Knowledge Exchange' are closely coupled and the Centre's approach is rooted in a 'Learning and Dissemination Framework' designed to engage users with the Centre's research and build routes to impact. The impact plan is aligned with the HM Treasury Green Book for 'Appraisal and Evaluation in Central Government' to achieve a meaningful improvement in the design, delivery, finance and management of efficient, sustainable, resilient UK infrastructure. Beneficiaries are spread across a wide variety of industrial sectors, government agencies, and business interests. The Centre will galvanise contributions from these disparate communities and offer leadership and ambition to generate national direction and global impact. In addition to the core sectoral players in energy, transport, water, IT, and waste networks, our achievements will impact a range of commercial, governmental, and citizen groups.

Commercial actors such as utility operators, investment groups, and consultancy firms will draw value from being involved in shaping vanguard business models and public/private investment platforms, as well as benefiting directly from their testing and application. In the longer term, both industrial and financial organisations will benefit from ownership of a broadly legitimized portfolio of infrastructure investment and management options, from a deeper understanding of the risk - reward profile of different business models, and from the incorporation of relevant protocols into the design codes and standards of professional organisations. Industrial and commercial entities will also profit from the evolution of a common cross-sector infrastructure vocabulary which will be cultivated via the various engagement events hosted by the Centre. These impacts will enhance the domestic and international economic competitiveness of a substantial number of UK businesses.

The regulatory community will benefit from a structured and broadly informed consideration of the feasibility of a cross sectoral or super-regulator able to internalise interdependencies. The Centre's review of the appropriate allocation of the range of risks deriving from infrastructure operations will also be of significance to this community. Regulatory bodies as well as local and national government will benefit from a previously unexposed evidence base upon which to posit policy and regulatory interventions, and from a set of entirely new models of interaction with the private sector, and new models of governance. In the longer term government can also expect increased tax take from the global profits of UK infrastructure/financing/consulting.

The Centre will have significant and lasting impact on the networked utility sector (both private and public) through a series of at least 20 structured seminars, workshops and debates over the course of the Centre's lifespan, with expected involvement of more than 300 senior policy makers, academics and industrialists from across the water, waste, ICT, energy and transport sectors. It will also generate a step-change in the UK's skills capacity in relevant areas through training a new cohort of multidisciplinary infrastructure specialists at both MSc and PhD levels.

Ultimately, the value of the investment made in both this and the second funded centre must be judged by the improved robustness and efficiency of the nation's infrastructure base. In this context, we are resolved that communities across the country, but particularly those in our urban conurbations, will enjoy more reliable and affordable networked utility services in the future, thereby enhancing quality of life as well as health and safety. The public will be able to engage with, and keep informed of, the Centre's activities though a web site, social media, and a series of public events.