The Innovative Manufacturing and Construction Research Centre (IMCRC) will undertake a wide variety of work in the Manufacturing, Construction and product design areas. The work will be contained within 5 programmes:1. Transforming Organisations / Providing individuals, organisations, sectors and regions with the dynamic and innovative capability to thrive in a complex and uncertain future2. High Value Assets / Delivering tools, techniques and designs to maximise the through-life value of high capital cost, long life physical assets3. Healthy & Secure Future / Meeting the growing need for products & environments that promote health, safety and security4. Next Generation Technologies / The future materials, processes, production and information systems to deliver products to the customer5. Customised Products / The design and optimisation techniques to deliver customer specific products.Academics within the Loughborough IMCRC have an internationally leading track record in these areas and a history of strong collaborations to gear IMCRC capabilities with the complementary strengths of external groups.Innovative activities are increasingly distributed across the value chain. The impressive scope of the IMCRC helps us mirror this industrial reality, and enhances knowledge transfer. This advantage of the size and diversity of activities within the IMCRC compared with other smaller UK centres gives the Loughborough IMCRC a leading role in this technology and value chain integration area. Loughborough IMCRC as by far the biggest IMRC (in terms of number of academics, researchers and in funding) can take a more holistic approach and has the skills to generate, identify and integrate expertise from elsewhere as required. Therefore, a large proportion of the Centre funding (approximately 50%) will be allocated to Integration projects or Grand Challenges that cover a spectrum of expertise.The Centre covers a wide range of activities from Concept to Creation.The activities of the Centre will take place in collaboration with the world's best researchers in the UK and abroad. The academics within the Centre will be organised into 3 Research Units so that they can be co-ordinated effectively and can cooperate on Programmes.

The construction sector is strategically important to the UK economy, employing 3.1 million people (>9% of the workforce), producing £370 billion in turnover, and exporting more than £8 billion in products and services. However, its current philosophy is resource and cost inefficient and environmentally unsustainable, through its low productivity, slow technology adoption and tendency to demolish and rebuild. Metal 3D printing offers opportunities to solve these challenges and lead to a more productive, innovative and sustainable construction sector. Metal 3D printing technology has transformed other engineering disciplines, including the biomedical and aeronautical sectors, while its application within the construction sector is still in its infancy. The technology has been fundamentally proven through the MX3D Bridge, the first metal 3D printed structure that was opened in July 2021, however there are still a number of barriers preventing more widespread adoption. Current equipment and processes produce elements that have significant material and geometric variability, within the same build and between repeated builds, which is not optimal for real-world use. Furthermore, the limited availability of suitable printing equipment has prevented research into the development of this novel manufacturing technique and its applications to the construction sector. ICWAAM will be a globally unique metal 3D printing facility, dedicated to large-scale, cost-effective applications for the construction sector. It will offer new research capabilities into the printing process, automated manufacture and the repair and upgrade of our critical infrastructure, along with the printing of complex, materially efficient geometries, which are uneconomical or impossible with standard techniques. ICWAAM will fundamentally challenge the current philosophy of the construction industry and lead to its transformation into a more productive, innovative and sustainable sector, with increased worker safety. Without direct access to large-scale metal 3D printing equipment, such as ICWAAM, researchers are unable to undertake this critical research and development, to solve the longstanding challenges in the construction sector.

The Innovative Construction Research Centre (ICRC) is dedicated to socio-technical systems research within the built environment, with particular emphasis on through-life performance in support of the client's business operations. Our vision is for a research centre that not only supports the competitiveness of the architectural, engineering, construction and facilities management sectors, but also supports societal needs for built infrastructure and the broader competitiveness of the UK economy. The domain of enquiry lies at the crucial interface between human and technical systems, thereby requiring an inter-disciplinary approach that combines engineering research methods with those derived from the social sciences. The ICRC's research portfolio is organised into six themes: (1) Integration of design, construction and facilities management. Concerns the through-life management of socio-technical systems within the built environment. Topics of consideration include: integrated logistic support, design for reliability and systems integration for building services. Of particular concern is the way that firms within the supply chain are integrated to provide solutions that add value to the client's business. (2) Knowledge management and organisational learning. Addresses the means of supporting knowledge flows across extended supply chains and the extent to which procurement systems learn across projects. Of particular importance is the design of learning mechanisms that extend across organisational boundaries. Also investigates the degree to which the construction sector can learn from other sectors, i.e. aerospace, automotive, retail, defence. (3) Human resource management and the culture of the industry. The construction sector is too often characterised by regressive approaches to human resource management (HRM) with little emphasis on developmental to support innovation. Of particular importance is the concept of 'high commitment management' that has emerged as a central component in the quest to link people management to business performance. Any attempt to improve HRM practices in the construction sector must also recognise cultural barriers to the implementation of new ways of working.(4) Innovative procurement. Includes legal, economic and organisational aspects of procurement systems. The last twenty years has seen a plethora of new procurement methods seeking to encourage different behaviours and allocations of risk. Many such initiatives experienced significant reality gaps between technological intent and resultant behaviours. Of particular importance in the current context is the notion of performance-based contracting which seeks to reward parties on the basis of building performance.(5) Innovation in through-life service provision. Most innovation in facilities management (FM) is concerned with service provision rather than the design and construction of the built asset. The inclusion of FM-service provision reflects the ICRC's strategic focus on through-life issues. The shift towards service provision is reflected in practice through procurement approaches such as PFI/PPP. But the issue has a wider significance as construction contractors increasingly embrace service philosophy. (6) Competitiveness, productivity and performance. Focuses on techniques for performance improvement, coupled with a broader emphasis on competitiveness and profitability within the marketplace. Techniques for performance improvement include: process mapping, benchmarking, value management, risk management and life-cycle costing. Also seeks to assess the competitiveness of the construction sector in comparison to other countries, and to achieve a broader understanding of the economic context within which firms operate.

Modernising the UK's health and social care system is a priority for government and for the country as a whole. To do this, wide ranging organisational and funding reforms are being put in place. An unprecedented investment to renew the built and technical infrastructure for delivering care is also underway: new hospitals and primary care centres are being built, information and communication technology is being upgraded and new technologies for diagnosing and treating disease are being introduced. If world-class infrastructure is to be delivered, this investment must achieve its full potential. The aim of HaCIRIC is to establish a new research centre to help accomplish this. HaCIRIC's focus is on the built and technical infrastructure for health and social care, and the interaction between infrastructure specification and the way patients are treated. Improving the way this is planned, delivered and managed is at the core of HaCIRIC's activity. What are the challenges? The health and social care system is one of the most complex and rapidly changing organisational and technical environments in any sector of the economy. Many stakeholders are involved in delivering care, funding mechanisms are convoluted, and patterns of demand and use are changing, as are government health policies. All this places new pressures on the underlying infrastructure. These are compounded by two problems. First, there is an historic legacy of out-dated buildings and cultures within the care system. Second, the life cycles of the various elements of the infrastructure / buildings, medical and information technology / are mismatched. Each involves complex supply chains, multiple users with their own needs and differing institutional and funding arrangements. All these have to be reconciled. For example, the current PFI programme for new hospitals involves supply contracts for thirty years or more, but incorporates technologies which have five year life cycles to help deliver diagnostics and therapies which are undergoing rapid evolutionary change. Modernising the health and social care infrastructure will therefore require innovative approaches. HaCIRIC will help develop the tools and processes which will embed 'innovation as normal business' amongst those responsible for delivering the investment in infrastructure. Its research programme has been developed in partnership with all the key stakeholders from the care system, including the Department of Health, the NHS, the Department of Trade and Industry and the supply industries. Seven research themes have been identified:- Managing innovation in a context of technological change- Procurement for innovation- Innovative design and construction- Care delivery practices- Delivering improved performance through operations management- Knowledge management in complex systems - Design and evaluation of integrated systems HaCIRIC is a collaboration between existing research centres at Imperial College London and the Universities of Loughborough, Reading and Salford. Additional partners from other universities, industry and the care system will be involved in specific research projects. Together this represents a resource valued at more than 11m, of which 7.0m consists of EPSRC support, 2.9m is from the four existing research centres, 500,000 is from the Department of Trade and Industry and 720,000 is from industrial partners. HaCIRIC will therefore represent a substantial resource and a unique capability in skills and knowledge to find solutions to the key healthcare infrastructure problems of the 21st century.