Construction Engineering Conference and Workshop 2014: Setting an Industry-Academic Collaborative Research Agenda, Seattle, Washington, March 27-29, 2014

Catholic University Of America, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this workshop is to investigate how the large domain of construction engineering can be empowered toward setting an agenda for basic research to successfully and proactively address its future challenges. Currently construction engineering has limited collaboration between industry and academia, does not focus on theory-building research, and a lack of understanding on what constitutes fundamental theory in construction engineering. The proposed conference and research workshop will be held in Seattle, Washington in 2014 with the goals of identifying critical research needs, synthesizing an actionable research agenda, and creating a high-caliber cohort of collaborators from industry and agency representatives and of construction and non-construction scholars. To achieve the workshop three goals, the project is designed to not just advocate but actively practice collaboration: Papers and keynote speeches are jointly authored by industry and academia, research components are integrated into the entire event, stipendees will serve to facilitate discussions, record expertise, and lead groups during the culminating synthesis workshop. If successful, this workshop will enable construction engineering to move from being a tradition-bound late adopter of innovation and problem-solving to become a driver of change that pursues its own needs-focused research agenda with rigorous scientific methodologies. By stimulating basic research the construction industry will gain a deeper understanding of how to improve its performance by realizing savings of time and cost for all stakeholders, enhance competitiveness in the global marketplace, improve sustainability and quality of the delivered built facilities, and lower the number of safety incidents. Results will be distributed through a detailed report that will contain the methodology, summaries of the various inputs, and the final research agenda and through peer-reviewed publications on pertinent issues by the industry-academic teams.