International multi-disciplinary workshop: Funding, Financing & Emerging Technologies in Infrastructure

The Funding, Financing & Emerging Technologies in Infrastructure workshop to be held in New York City in December 2021 will help transform civil and social infrastructure in the United Kingdom(UK) and United States (US) by assembling international experts to improve infrastructure delivery in a post Covid world through innovative funding and financing as well as emerging technologies. Experts from infrastructure's technological, engineering, social, environmental, economic, and financial dimensions will be convened to explore how a multi-disciplinary approach can address numerous pressing policy challenges. Workshop objectives include an assessment of how new and proven technologies can improve infrastructure delivery, an evaluation of alternative contracting and procurement approaches - including public-private partnerships, value capture, and asset recycling - and assembling good practice with a focus on lessons that the infrastructure policy experience can offer. The workshop will focus on decoupling economic growth from resource consumption and waste by cycling products and materials back into production enabling a sustainable, resource efficient and low carbon infrastructure system.

Research teams from the UK and US will form the core of the workshops. On the UK side, the workshop is organized by the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) based at the University of Cambridge. CSIC has a multidisciplinary team including collaborations across the various engineering disciplines. Cambridge is one of thirteen founding partners of the United Kingdom Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure & Cities (UKCRIC), which features prominently in the workshop organization. On the US side, the Cornell University Program in Infrastructure Policy (CPIP) will be the focal point of workshop organization. CPIP is focused on improving the delivery, maintenance, and operation of physical infrastructure with a focus on infrastructure funding and financing. CPIP will partner with the Urban Tech Hub at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute on the Cornell Tech campus in New York City.

The workshop will include practitioners, academics, financiers, industry leaders, and state and government representatives and extends its international coverage to those who cannot attend in person through online technologies. Participants will generate a research agenda with the vision and expertise to transform infrastructure. The workshop will support collaboration and continuing interaction between the US and UK and also create a forum for students to participate and forge relationships with experts who have strong national and international reputations, building a pipeline of next-generation experts in infrastructure planning and policy. The result will be to guide and sustain impactful research for years to come, setting the stage for greater cross-country, cross-disciplinary, and cross-sectoral research and infrastructure implementation.