It is said that time waits for no one.
In the first week of July 2022, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the UK’s primary engineering research funder, published Tomorrow’s Engineering Research Challenges (the TERC report) (ESPRC, 2022). This forward-looking report identifies seven crosscutting themes that rely heavily upon engineering research:
achieving net zero and sustainability
faster digital design
greater access and use of data
increasing human resilience
understanding complex systems
harnessing disruptive, emerging technologies
underpinning tools and techniques.
The TERC report provides a welcome overview and strategic direction following a couple of years of uncertainty as the country (and the world) dealt with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. In March of this year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) finally confirmed the largest budget yet for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). This was tempered somewhat by the continuing uncertainty surrounding the UK’s access to Horizon Europe funding. Shortly after the TERC report was published, the UK Government announced ‘transitional measures’ to support UK research, should the UK not associate with Horizon Europe. The announcement simultaneously calmed those concerned about a hard stop and worried those confident an agreement would be reached.
It is within this landscape that, earlier this month, the High Court judged the UK’s net zero strategy (the TERC report’s no. 1 theme) inadequate and unlawful and gave the government eight months to provide the necessary detail for Parliamentary and public scrutiny.
The world of engineering research looks very different now than it did just a short time ago when the research described in this special issue was commissioned and conducted. The Priming Laboratory Experiments on Infrastructure and Urban Systems (PLEXUS) project was commissioned in 2017 as part of BEIS’s investment in the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC). Rogers (2022) describes both UKCRIC and PLEXUS in detail and it is clear that funding for a national engineering research capability was viewed favourably. BEIS, via EPSRC, awarded UKCRIC £138m in capital investment, which was match-funded by the 15 universities housing the facilities, comprising 11 laboratories, 6 urban observatories and data modelling and simulation facilities.
The PLEXUS project was designed to evidence UKCRIC’s potential. All the papers in this special issue demonstrate how laboratory experiments, modelling and simulation, and live observatories speak directly to national and international priorities like climate change.
Rogers (2022) brings together PLEXUS’s research outcomes to describe a proposition for the next generation of transport bridges, and in doing so demonstrates how UKCRIC’s national research capability is more than the sum of its parts.
Loveridge et al. (2022) calculate, for the first time, the opportunity for harvesting thermal energy from buried infrastructure. Alongside this, the authors suggest strategies to enable the UK to reduce barriers to realising this potential.
Luo et al. (2022) bring together lab and field experiments to close a knowledge gap that helps release the potential for increased deployment of integral bridges and the concomitant reduction in construction and maintenance requirements.
Wang et al. (2022) remind us that there is much we still don’t know about our most used construction material – concrete. They demonstrate that the aging and deterioration of concrete depends upon its make-up and that it is possible for mechanical performance to strengthen with carbonation.
This special issue shows that national research infrastructures, like UKCRIC’s facilities, enable the research that will lead to smarter infrastructure and construction. Used as intended, as a collective research capability, such facilities give researchers the tools to bring together infrastructure assets, digital technologies and data for laboratory, real-world and digital experimentation.
UKCRIC’s real strength, however, is in its scientific missions, which shape the research questions to be asked, and answered, in its facilities. The scientific missions emphasise sustainability, resilience, liveability, equity and good governance set within UKCRIC’s vision to connect policy and practice with internationally leading, systems-based, transdisciplinary research.
As this special issue goes to press, UKCRIC’s and other’s collaborative efforts are at risk of dissipating. UKCRIC’s capital funding has come to an end and there now seems to be little appetite to fund the coordination of integrated research capabilities. The laboratories will continue, of course, within their individual institutions, but the urban observatories and modelling and simulation facilities will, eventually, be powered down. The TERC report describes achieving net zero and sustainability, as ‘an engineering challenge that needs to be undertaken at scale’ with ‘a strong emphasis on the greater adoption of systems thinking’ (ESPRC, 2022; p. 28). It is hard to see how individual research projects will achieve the necessary transformation. The imperative is both acute and immediate. If the government cannot provide detailed route maps to net zero within the next eight months, the country’s net zero ambitions will be left in tatters.
It is a similar story for ‘faster digital design’ and ‘greater access and use of data’, the TERC report’s second and third crosscutting themes. The report identifies digital twins amongst the tools and techniques necessary for a digitising engineering sector. Despite this, funding for initiatives such as the Centre for Digital Built Britain is coming to an end. Its Digital Twin Hub has, luckily, found a new home at the Connected Places Catapult. UKCRIC’s Data and Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure provides a safe space for data models, training on data standards and a legacy that enables models to be used by others. Its funding comes to an end next year.
In fact, there isn’t a single TERC crosscutting theme that wouldn’t benefit from coordinated effort that convenes the necessary collaborators. ‘To resolve the challenges identified requires multiple agencies, institutions and disciplines working together in an inclusive way, to achieve impact and engineer a more sustainable, resilient, and productive future’ (ESPRC, 2022; p. 19).
The challenges are clear and the need for coordination underlined. The remaining question is whether the funding will follow. In a year’s time we will know the answer – for better or worse.
