CSIC’s key aim is that the technologies emerging from world-leading research taking place here at the University of Cambridge are used to transform the construction industry to achieve sustainability in an integrated way.
Image: NCE Future Technology Forum, London. Photograph by Phil Keenan
This can only be realised by close collaboration with industry, through knowledge transfer and by sharing research outputs with asset owners, contractors and industry professionals.
In the past few months CSIC has hosted and participated in a wide range of conferences and workshops, with more planned for 2016. By the close of the 2015 calendar year, the CSIC team will have supported more than 25 external conferences and hosted six targeted workshops.
Phil Keenan, CSIC Business Development Manager, said: “CSIC is the UK’s leading sensor research, innovation and knowledge centre for construction and infrastructure asset monitoring. “Our presence at these events provides a great opportunity for industry professionals to meet our research team to discuss particular technical challenges and benefit from our experience and expertise.”
CSIC has hosted a series of Future Technologies Workshops addressing a number of current and challenging topics. To date these have attracted more than 250 participants from 70 separate organisations; key topics have included the Internet of Things and the use of Big Data in the context of infrastructure and construction, and more are being planned.
“CSIC offers bespoke training workshops as well as Industry Partner events throughout the year. But our Future Technologies Workshops serve a different purpose,” said Sandy Yatteau who leads Industry Partner Liaison at CSIC. “The workshops are interactive events which are open to CSIC Industry Partners and other interested organisations. These focus on collaboration and give participants a chance to thrash out problems, share their experiences and learn more about potential technical solutions to their challenges.
“We draw on the knowledge of experts at the University and from industry to interrogate topics and we encourage companies of all sizes to get involved, whether they are formal Industry Partners of ours or not. It’s in everyone’s interests to encourage take-up of fresh technologies that help meet twenty-first century needs.”
CSIC also sponsors a number of the New Civil Engineer’s (NCE) and Ground Engineering’s (GE) series of infrastructure and construction events, including its Future Technologies Forum and the UK Roads, UK Rail, Piling and Foundations and Basement’s and Underground Structures conferences.
These events provide an opportunity for CSIC to showcase its range of new technologies and tools, including CSattAR photogrammetry and the award-winning spin-out UtterBerry wireless sensing system. CSIC demonstration models include a scale model of a section of the Forth Road Bridge, fitted with fibre optic sensors to demonstrate how our sensing technologies can be used to track the movement, vibration and structural stress in the field.
“It’s easier to take the bridge to the people, than it is to take the people to the real Forth Road Bridge and we’ve enjoyed allowing people to play around with instrumentation and fibre optic sensors that we have hooked up on the model,” said Sandy.
Currently there is a drive for the infrastructure and construction sector to work ‘smart’ and for the UK to lead a global field. CSIC works with its funders Innovate UK, allied Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) organisations and other strategic partners, including government departments, to support them in showcasing the very latest developments in engineering sensing technologies to a UK and international audience.
For more details about forthcoming Future Technologies Workshops see here along with a summary of the events that have taken place.
CSIC will host the International Conference on Smart Infrastructure and Construction (ICSIC) in Cambridge in June 2016. For further information see here