skip to primary navigationskip to content
Home

Cambridge Centre for Housing & Planning Research

Studying at Cambridge

 

Understanding the socio-economic inhibitors to the take up of digital innovation in construction

Transforming construction is a social, cultural, economic and political challenge, and not just a technical problem, and our project will focus on the key social and cultural factors inhibiting digital uptake in the construction sector and which are holding back transformation across the construction supply chain. The research will seek to understand and then improve the socio-cultural bottlenecks preventing the uptake of technical innovations in construction.

This research will focus on the socio-cultural challenges that inhibit the transformation of construction, and will seek to assess the impact of digital innovations where they exist and to understand the barriers to greater uptake. It will work with partners to assess what new contracting and business models are needed to facilitate the innovations that have the potential to transform construction.

With two work streams, one looking at the social context of the UK construction industry and the other at off-site manufacture, this project will build on existing work produced by the Housing Digital Built Britain Network, and will seek to address some of the gaps in capabilities, many of which are social and not just technical. The project will gather evidence from successful use cases, seeking to measure the benefits and value of such innovation in order to provide an evidence based case to the sector to support greater uptake of digital innovation. Through interviews, focus groups and workshops, the research will focus on learning across sectors, on international comparisons and on understanding the different contexts in which innovation is needed, and on the interests, motivations and requirements of the different stakeholders.

This research forms part of the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) at the University of Cambridge’s work within the Construction Innovation Hub, which brings together world-class expertise from the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), BRE and CDBB to transform the UK construction sector. The Construction Innovation Hub is funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Industrial Strategy Fund.

 

Homes UK 2020: Challenges of BIM implementation

Rey Shojaei's presentation at Homes UK 2020 looked at some of the challenges facing the construction industry.

Homes UK 2020: Challenges of BIM implementation - Read More…

Research Profile - Understanding the social context to transforming construction through digital innovation

The Cambridge Centre for Digital Built Britain has published a profile of our research.

Research Profile - Understanding the social context to transforming construction through digital innovation - Read More…

Exploring ways to tackle the challenges of the need for skills and training in the implementation of Building Information Modelling: a case study of two leading UK construction companies

Dr Reyhaneh Shojaei's presentation was given to an international audience on 19 November 2020.

Exploring ways to tackle the challenges of the need for skills and training in the implementation of Building Information Modelling: a case study of two leading UK construction companies - Read More…

2020 Industry Webinar

Our annual webinar for the construction industry on 'Strategies for tackling barriers to adopting offsite manufacturing and digital technologies for project delivery' was held on 10 December 2020.

2020 Industry Webinar - Read More…

How could better use of data and digital technologies improve the planning system?

Dr Rey Shojaei presented at the RTPI South West's online seminar 'How can digital technologies be used to promote positive planning?' on October 1, 2020.

How could better use of data and digital technologies improve the planning system? - Read More…

ARCOM Conference Paper : OSM & Construction Industry Transformation

The paper 'Offsite manufacturing and construction industry transformation: a multi-level socio-technical transitions perspective' has been published in the Proceedings of the 36th Annual ARCOM Conference.

ARCOM Conference Paper : OSM & Construction Industry Transformation - Read More…

State of the nation: sector report (OSM)

Dr Kwadwo Oti-Sarpong's report reviewed developments related to the uptake and use of offsite manufacturing for construction project delivery in the UK construction industry.

State of the nation: sector report (OSM) - Read More…

State of the nation: sector report (Digital Innovation)

Dr Reyhaneh Shojaei's report sets out the current state of the UK construction industry in relation to the socio-economic inhibitors to the uptake of digital innovation.

State of the nation: sector report (Digital Innovation) - Read More…

Blog for CDBB - October 2019

Dr Rey Shojaei's blog for the Centre for Digital Built Britain explains the thinking behind her research into the socio-economic inhibitors to the take up of digital innovation in construction.

Blog for CDBB - October 2019 - Read More…

Tackling the housing crisis through digital technologies and OSM

Our policy paper for the Bennett Institute of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge forms part of the series 'An Industrial Strategy for Tomorrow'.

Tackling the housing crisis through digital technologies and OSM - Read More…

Funder

Project Start Date

August 2019

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge