Businesses from all parts of the construction supply chain
are set to benefit from a new collaboration between the Construction Innovation
Hub and UK Construction
Week (UKCW), in a move designed to boost take up
of innovation in the industry and realisation of the Government’s sector
deal ambitions.
The Construction Innovation Hub will sponsor the UKCW Innovation Zone at this year’s show. An innovation advisory board made up of
construction clients, contractors and consultants has also met to shape how
innovation is placed at the heart of this year’s event. It will assist in
scrutinising the latest projects, products and technologies being pitched for
the new Innovation Zone.
Arbiters from Willmott Dixon, Luton Airport, Bryden
Wood, Mace, TfL, The Princes’ Foundation, Castle Planning and the Hub will
decide what will appear in the Innovation Zone and will also choose the winner
of UKCW’s Innovation Award 2019, which will be announced on the second day of
the show.
Keith Waller, Construction Innovation Hub
programme director says: “UK Construction Week is fast becoming one of
the most essential industry events of the year. At the Construction Innovation
Hub, we are eager to reach out and engage with all stakeholders within the
built environment. This will be crucial to our success in the coming months and
years.
"By partnering up with a key event like UK
Construction Week, we want to give visitors the chance to experience
first-hand the Hub's vision of a transformed construction sector. We will
share how we are planning to use digital and manufacturing technologies to help
build smarter, greener and more efficient buildings much faster and cheaper
than we currently do, and how players - big and small – from right across the
construction sector, and its supply chain, can get involved.”
Nathan
Garnett, UKCW event director says: “Scratch the surface, and you find that the
construction industry is actually one of the most innovative industries. It is
full of examples of new ways of working, sustainable products, collaboration
and continually evolving technologies. We want our visitors to experience this
first-hand, to talk to others who are leading by example and to boost uptake of
these significant new developments.
“That’s
why working with the Construction Innovation Hub is an ideal partnership from
our perspective. We chose innovation as a theme for this year’s UKCW and the
Hub’s support helps us to deliver on that message. The Hub has a four-year
mission to drive change and that is exactly what we want to achieve through our
event.”
The Hub brings together
expertise from
BRE, the Manufacturing
Technology Centre (MTC) and the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) to help
implement the strategy. Funded by UK Research and Innovation through the
Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, the Hub is driving collaboration to
transform the way buildings and infrastructure are
designed, manufactured, integrated and connected within the built environment.
Looking to
the future of construction the Hub is also supporting MOBIE’s design challenge.
This is aimed at young people aged between 11 and 16 years of age and it is
encouraging them to design a 21st
century home.
Registrationto UK Construction Week is now open. The show takes place at the NEC, Birmingham from 8-10 October
2019.
