SBEnrc Newsletter – December 2014

Dear Colleagues

Thank you all for your support throughout 2014.

We have had a great year, and achieved some exciting outcomes. Key highlights for 2014 include:

• Growing our partnership base with three new core members joining us. We welcomed the Western Australia Department of Housing, Aurecon and Griffith University to our SBEnrc family.
• We held national industry development workshops to help identify new research projects for commencement in mid-2014 to extend through to the end of 2015. Bringing together existing and new partners allowed research end users (industry and government) to align future SBEnrc research activities to real industry needs.
• As a result of the industry development workshops, we’ve started five new industry-focused projects, including projects on new topics such as housing policy and workforce practices.
• Our international outreach has been extended via a number of projects and partnerships with Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden and NTNU, Norway. Building collaborations and linkages helps us to develop stronger capacity for our research and avoids reinventing the wheel.

Last month we ran a very successful BIM for Business Industry Seminar and cocktail event at Curtin University, attended by about 100 people. The seminar included the launch of the Integrated Project Environments report by Doug Morgan, Executive Director, Planning and Technical Services at Main Roads WA. This also marked the first international visiting professor contribution through collaboration with Chalmers University’s Göran Lindahl.

Looking to 2015

Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Construction Research Alliance. Those early days of collaborative research paved the way for the formation of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Construction Innovation in 2001 and the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre in 2010. It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with some of these people for almost twenty years.

In early 2015 we will shape new project themes that will take our research beyond 2015, helping us fulfil our vision to be an enduring world-class research and knowledge broker in sustainable infrastructure and building design, construction and management to enhance the performance of Australia’s built environment industry.

We are looking forward to 2015: to continued growth, new applied research themes, and strengthening our partner network. Never before has the need for applied research to improve productivity and effectiveness of our industry been higher for us to maintain our global competitive advantage. Variability and volatility across the world highlights the importance of applied research and how it can create more affordable and effective community outcomes.

We wish all of you a very happy and safe holiday season and we look forward to working with you again in 2015.

Best regards

Keith

Dr Keith Hampson, Chief Executive Officer
Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
E: k.hampson@sbenrc.com.au
W: www.sbenrc.com.au

Our challenge is to continue growing the value and impact of our applied research more deeply and broadly across Australia and to secure a more durable financial base. The Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc) is acknowledged as an excellent example of a CRC that has graduated into an independent organisation delivering unique industry, government and research collaboration.