Briefing: Engineering for the far future: rethinking the value proposition

In preparation for a call for proposals, a workshop was held with representatives from the Institution of Civil Engineers’ (ICE) Research, Development and Innovation towards Engineering Excellence Panel, academia, Innovate UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Highways England and the consulting industry. The overarching theme that emerged was that infrastructure does not adequately take into account the value that could be gained from its long-term service provision. This has therefore been selected as an appropriate cross-cutting theme for the ‘Spring 2019 Call for Proposals for the ICE’s Research and Development Enabling Fund’. The findings from this research and development initiative are required to be presented at a half-day event, as well as to form the subject of papers and/or briefings to be published in relevant parts of the ICE Proceedings and other forms of dissemination, thus ensuring that they are brought to the attention of ICE’s members. This briefing is a summary of challenges that need to be embraced by the profession, as revealed by the workshop discussions and which therefore reflect the collective views of all those at the workshop (who are listed in the Acknowledgements).