Briefing: Murray & Roberts chair at Stellenbosch University

The construction industry needs people with the necessary skills to combine engineering and management for realising challenging projects. A chair in construction engineering and management was established at the department of civil engineering at Stellenbosch University in January 2010 with full sponsorship from South Africa’s leading engineering, contracting and construction services company Murray & Roberts. Although the chair participates in the curriculum of the final year of undergraduate studies in civil engineering, the focus is on postgraduate programmes and advanced management development and students can enrol for MScEng, MEng and PhD studies. Students with backgrounds and qualifications other than engineering are also encouraged to participate and can be considered for the postgraduate diploma in engineering. The research at the chair for construction engineering and management focuses on large, multidisciplinary capital projects. Areas of particular interests are design management, project risk, modular construction and infrastructure management.