Watch the presentations from CDBB's Summer Showcase - now online!

If you missed our Summer Showcase, or would just like to watch the fast-paced presentations once again, then you can now watch the presentations here, along with the summary video of the day.

Held at the McGrath Centre at St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, on 30 July, the event showcased an eclectic range of multi-disciplinary work completed by the mini-projects team. The 17 commissioned mini-projects, funded by the University of Cambridge network, marked the launch of the CDBB research programme in December 2017. The brief was to consider how digital technologies impact the built environment and how society might be affected by the changes that may follow the adoption of these technologies.

The packed and pacy agenda gave a sense of the activity at CDBB and delegates were encouraged to follow-up presentations with conversations to learn more about the Centre and its research. Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice Chancellor: Enterprise and Business Relations at the University of Cambridge and Director of CDBB, opened the event and started the timed three-minute presentations (nine slides remaining on the screen for 20 seconds each) by introducing CDBB and 'What is a Digital Built Britain'.

Professor Neely said: “In essence the Centre is doing three things: building research capability and capacity across the UK; informing policy; and supporting change to digital in the built environment. Digital technologies are much broader than Building Information Modelling so the language we use is around design, build, operate and integrate to focus on how these technologies can be applied to enhance productivity and efficiency.

“Although based in Cambridge the Centre is very much a national programme. We want to find ways to collaborate with industry and academia to make sure that together we build a digital built Britain. I invite you to talk to colleagues here, explore what we are doing at CDBB and think about how we might collaborate together.”

Mini-Project Presentations

The 11 mini-project presentations demonstrated the wide reach and cross-disciplinary nature of the CDBB programme, which is designed to support the digitally-enabled transformation of the full lifecycle of the built environment to increase productivity and improve economic and social outcomes in the UK. Reflecting the dynamic of CDBB’s agenda working to effect transformational change in the present and future, the mini-projects presented a snapshot of research work that has generated both results and raised further questions to be explored.

The presented mini-projects included:

CDBB Research Networks and other Research

Dr Jennifer Schooling, Chair of the CDBB Research Strategy Steering Group and Director of the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction at the University of Cambridge introduced the Centre’s research programme, which features a network model to bring together academic researchers, industry and stakeholder organisations to drive the creation of a digitally-enabled landscape. A call for multi-institutional networks was announced by CDBB in early 2018 and resulted in six initial funded research networks. There will be additional calls for research to fill identified gaps in the landscape picture.

Emphasising the Centre’s open approach to research to encourage all interested people and organisations to engage with CDBB, Dr Schooling said: “The Centre’s Research Bridgehead is very much about drawing together the best research in the UK. Our six research networks want to reach out into the broadest possible academic group within the country. Please think about any opportunity for you to engage and do chat to the network leads after the presentations.”

The CDBB research networks were presented in the same fast-paced format and included:

Other Research Presented

Summary Video