UKCRIC is based around (i) a linked network of physical test facilities, integrated with (ii) a series of "living city" observatories, through which the functioning of cities and infrastructure and how people actually use them will be monitored, analysed and assessed; and (iii) a distributed capability for infrastructure data, visualisation, modelling and simulation.
UKCRIC does not have a single geographical home. Each academic partner leads a theme and contributes to others, giving a strong collaborative network with multiple centres and connections between them. This spreads the benefits geographically and into teaching programmes throughout UK HE. It does however mean that a strong, sustainable, collaborative leadership/ management/ coordination function, distributed but centrally directed and able to represent the UKCRIC community as a whole, is needed to realise the full potential benefits.
This proposal is to fund coordination and leadership of UKCRIC as a whole, and its multidisciplinary research programme, through a Coordination Node (CN).
The aim is to provide coherent and globally-respected leadership of UKCRIC in
*setting the transdisciplinary research agenda
*delivering collaborative, multidisciplinary moving towards transdisciplinary research while ensuring that facilities are used widely, fully and effectively
*ensuring the results of research are implemented for the benefit of society, the environment and the UK economy.
The objectives are to
*establish and maintain governance and operational structures and protocols, including criteria for engagement, collaboration, use of facilities, and expansion of initial membership
*engage stakeholders to develop an holistic, multi-disciplinary vision and research strategy, with key emphases on society, sustainability, resilience and global opportunity
*foster trans-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder working, learning and knowledge sharing across UKCRIC's research portfolio, while ensuring wide, full and effective use of facilities
*identify and exploit opportunities and pathways for impact, mechanisms for innovation and advocacy for influencing policy
*develop the next generation of research leaders, address the skills demands of the infrastructure sector and coordinate doctoral and other high-level training
*progress a business model for sustaining the CN after the proposed funding expires.
Benefits: UKCRIC will address near term issues such as optimising investment and use of infrastructure. In the longer term, it will develop new materials, techniques and technologies. At the highest level, it will understand how to make the system of systems that constitutes a nation's infrastructure more resilient to extreme events and more adaptable to changing circumstances and contexts, and how it can provide services that are more affordable, accessible and useable to the whole population. It will also develop new transdisciplinary areas of activity that set research and policy agenda in the infrastructure arena.
The CN will add value through being transformative in viewing and exploiting emerging findings through an integrated infrastructure/ urban systems lens, engaging directly with a range of stakeholders including industry, city leaders and other end users. Research will be shaped by a range of considerations and voices, to give a multi-faceted understanding of future infrastructure systems demand, and how this might be shaped by societal and financial interventions. It will consider how, where and when technological, engineering and process advances can be exploited to best effect across the infrastructure and urban systems landscape, while allowing for the development of potential disruptors and changes in philosophy, eg from "predict and provide" to "decide and create".
Added value will also be achieved through coordinating a large set of research activities, drawing on existing work, to promote and deliver overarching cross-disciplinary goals.
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