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Brunel researchers assisted practitioners within the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to develop and explore a range of climate change policy scenarios in agriculture as part of the UK government's climate change strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) CO2 emissions by 3 million tonnes to 2020. This led to:
Environmental and Policy Impact through:
- the novel application of the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) technique, to enable effective scenario modelling at DEFRA in pursuit of improved management of environmental risks;
- enhanced capacity and capability within and across climate change mitigation project teams and experts, allowing DEFRA practitioners to add the FCM technique to their repertoire of futures modelling.
Practitioner Impact through:
- Improved professional standards, guidelines and training — along with the development of DEFRA resources to enhance their professional practice.
Development of the UK construction industry was hampered by a focus on individual projects, with two drawbacks: limited transfer of lessons learned from one project to the next, and limited focus on systemic innovation and wider commercial opportunities.
Drawing on their research, our Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group helped construction companies — including Laing O'Rourke (LOR), Arup, and Mace — overcome these obstacles by adopting a `systems integration' model to capture and utilise lessons learned, and by developing Executive Education programmes to make project engineers aware of wider commercial and innovation issues. These improvements enhanced delivery of major projects such as the Olympic Park and Crossrail.
The Group changed firm behaviour, re-orientated project management practices, and translated lessons learned into organisational capabilities at LOR, Arup, and Mace.
Beneficiaries were the UK construction and consulting engineering sector, who as a result were better equipped to innovate and compete globally, and their clients, such as the UK Olympic Delivery Authority and Crossrail.
The development of a decision support system in close partnership with London's Inward Investment agency (Think London) enabled the latter to win strategic high-value and competitive inward investment projects to the city. The technologies developed played a key role in building the business case for London as a destination for inward investors and were estimated to have contributed towards 45% of 600+ successful completions, leading to the creation or retention of over 18,000 new jobs and the contribution of £2 billion to London's economy. Among the hundreds of successful outcomes was the establishment of Microsoft's Search Technology Centre in London.
This study brings together 2 strands of research in: (1) environmental sustainability and decision taking (Gilmour and Blackwood), and (2) novel computer games technology for efficient 3D real time and interactive visualisation of complex model outcomes (Isaacs and Falconer). This research and knowledge exchange both defined sustainability indicators which informed planning of the £1 bln Dundee waterfront development (one of the largest regeneration projects in the UK) and changed practice in project design and construction processes. The application of our research has also changed how information is displayed to stakeholders, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions.