Transforming Construction Network Plus (N+)

The purpose of the Network Plus (N+) is to create a new community of researchers and a body of knowledge to inform future construction policy and practice. The N+ is one of the investments within the Transforming Construction Challenge (TCC), a programme supported by the UK government's Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The overall aim of these investments is to transform the way the construction and built environment sector operates. Within this, the N+ focuses on supporting research that takes a holistic approach, which means thinking of construction as a production 'system' for built assets that adds value to cities and their infrastructures. Transforming design, construction and operation of buildings is a problem that demands input from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines, which is why major, coordinated investments are being made through the TCC. Within this, the research supported through the N+ will focus on the gaps, inter-relationships and under-explored regions of this domain, spanning digital, energy, construction and manufacturing expertise, in line with the expectations of the Industrial Strategy Construction Sector Deal. The N+ will address a future in which the UK designs, constructs and operates buildings by realising the potential for integrating advanced offsite manufacturing with state-of-the-art digital design and energy generation and storage technologies. By exploring and synthesising knowledge of how people and communities experience and interact with the built environment, N+ will foster new approaches to the provision of inspiring buildings that give rise to greater user satisfaction and productivity. Our ambition is that the N+ should help transform the way buildings are designed, built, powered, managed, and used in the future. The N+ will bring academics together, with industry and policy representatives, through networking activities (such as workshops and conferences) and skills-building events. It will issue two open calls for small research projects, funding up to 20 academic-led and user-inspired projects to generate new research findings. Academics from a range of disciplines will take part and work together with users, as project partners, to develop new ideas for transforming construction. Multidisciplinary research is to be expected (i.e. researchers from different disciplines working together), but interdisciplinary enquiry will be preferred and actively encouraged (where enquiry is problem-focused, and uncoupled from disciplinary norms). The N+ will be particularly mindful of the needs of early and mid-career researchers, because supporting them helps to create a community of collaborative thinkers for the future. It will liaise with other major initiatives, such as the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC), with its complementary brief to advance the science and engineering of the wider infrastructure and cities context. Opportunities to engage with the N+ include participation in the small projects, attendance at events (organised by the N+ and other TCC projects); web and printed media will be used to disseminate ideas, calls and project results. Those who are not involved in the small projects will still be able to access the N+ events, website, research digests, workshops and conferences. Particular effort will be made to broaden the range of disciplines that typically participate in research on the construction industry, and the N+ will support those who seek new types of engagement with users. A dedicated team of researchers will capture data from leading practice, to extend understanding of the regional innovation systems involved and conduct review that will not only lead to high-quality academic outputs, but will also be summarised in easy-to-digest summaries, with support from the N+ team.

The principal and long-term impact area for the N+ lies within policy and industry practices. We anticipate potentially significant impact on future construction-related industry policy and organisational approaches as a result of WP2 and the small projects. To initiate this impact, one of the first tasks for the N+ will be to identify suitable individuals within policy-making (e.g. BEIS) and policy-informing (e.g. CPA, CIOB) institutions that can be engaged by the PI. This will be one of the tasks overseen by Construction Leadership Council member, Ann Bentley, who will chair the N+ Strategy Board. The Transforming Construction Challenge (TCC) investments and their own extensive stakeholder groups are a key target audience for the N+, including the 6-8 TCC Research Leadership recipients. Professors Whyte and Ruyssevelt will act as liaisons for the CIH and ABC respectively (T3.4, see Case for Support), and impact with this community will be a standing item on the agenda of N+ management meetings. This is a potentially large grouping (c.100-200 people), so we will ensure that we explore leverage costing for any collaborative events to extend our activities to include these investments. The N+ has a particularly important objective around community-building, so engaging and benefiting a broad range of people among academic stakeholders is key. This will be beyond construction and built environment researchers, and include management scholars, social scientists, manufacturing, and engineering. The N+ will enable them to access new collaborations and projects (WP4&5), and new (interdisciplinary) skills (via T3.2), as well as participate in international academic webinars (T2.4) and share a platform at the N+ conferences. All the small project teams will receive mentoring from an N+ investigator. Early and mid-career researchers are a particular target audience, so the N+ will use a dedicated stream in the Calls and is requesting funds to enable these academics to attend all the N+ events (60 supported places in total) if they don't have access to their own funds to do so. Timings for Calls have been set to take into account academic holidays, so that work-life balance is not affected unreasonably. All the above stakeholder groups are anticipated to benefit from the outputs from WP2 in which we digest findings and make sense of outcomes across all the N+ small projects, representatives from the user community, and the other TCC investments (e.g. ABC, CIH). The two N+ RAs will be moving amongst users and project teams throughout the duration of the N+, so will be in a good position to ensure we reach stakeholders, and engage with them effectively. Community briefings (T2.3), promoted via the KTN, will be useful to demonstrate co-production of knowledge and, with support from the UCL Communications Officer, will be sufficiently industry-oriented in their language and style to encourage circulation. Underpinning all of the above, our communications and knowledge exchange activities (WP3) are critical to ensure that all of our stakeholder groups benefit from the N+. The extensive and multi-channel communications plan is based on digital dissemination means, and 10 in-person events. Helped by the KTN, we will reach an audience of over 30k people immediately, use webinars to broadcast to potentially thousands, meet at least 500 people in person, and support 10-20 project teams. Events will be held in London, the West Midlands, Leeds and Manchester, and Call briefings will be recorded and available via the web. We will also leverage communication support from ESRC, EPSRC, and the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC). Finally, training and advice from a specialist research impact consultancy will ensure the N+ delivers high-quality impact across the four areas identified in the Pathways to Impact, and that N+ team members are sufficiently skilled to continue applying this approach in subsequent research.