The 124th meeting of the CIB Board took place from October 6th -7th 2021 in Copenhagen with 13 Board members attending in person and a further 9 online. We thank everyone for their energy and commitment to the future development of CIB.
The meeting was chaired by CIB President Keith Hampson and hosted superbly by Thorkild Ӕro of Aalborg University. A summary of the business conducted is below, key points to be aware of include the advanced plans for the World Building Congress in Melbourne in June 2022 and the forthcoming opportunity to nominate candidates for the Board for 2022-25.
World Building Congress, Melbourne, 27th-30th June 2022
Ron Wakefield, chair of the organising committee at RMIT, provided an upbeat report on interest in the Congress, with over 600 abstracts submitted and reviewed (final papers due in December), 25 Special Issues of journals proposed, and positive progress with the re-opening of Australia’s borders for international travel. We seem set fair for an exceptional Congress.
Guest speakers
The Board was delighted and privileged to receive two high profile guest speakers to address the topic of “Sustainable building classes in the Danish building codes”, following the new Danish national strategy for sustainable construction.
Harpa Birgisdottir, Professor, BUILD, Aalborg University. Her research in sustainability represents in excellent ways the knowledge and methods we have today in Denmark used diligently by the construction industry when working with sustainable construction. This includes “LCAbyg” the official Danish calculation software tool which is currently used in the industry to calculate the materials’ environmental impact in a building. This professional tool developed by Harpa Birgisdottir and her research group is based on the first Danish version of DGNB, where Harpa was a great capacity in adapting the criteria to Danish conditions. Most recently, one of Harpa Birgisdottir’s analyses has shown the importance of including the climate impact of buildings when assessing the buildings’ total impact. In the past, it has been common practice to only count on the buildings’ energy consumption.
Lene Espersen[dw1] , CEO of Danish Association of Architectural Firms. Lene played a key role prior to the adoption of a new strategy for sustainable construction in Denmark. As a member of the Climate Partnership for the building and construction sector, she participated in the preparation of the sector’s recommendations, which were passed on to the politicians of the Danish parliaments. A supportive, unanimous and consolidated sector proved to be a crucial element in the path to the pioneering national strategy for sustainable construction, including the voluntary sustainability classes in the Danish building regulations. Lene is dedicated to improving business opportunities for architectural firms. She works hard to show evidence-based value of architecture, and to demonstrate that green transformation provides new business opportunities. She has an extensive network within the built environment and business and holds positions as chair of the board of Aalborg University and Green Hub Denmark.
Other guests. Over dinner we were joined by eight more senior figures from academia and industry in Denmark, and a vigorous discussion was held on the merits of research and its value for industry in addressing the big challenges our sector faces, in particular the impacts of climate change.
Programme Committee (chaired by Kalle Kähkönen)
The Board was pleased to approve the following guidelines which followed extensive consultation with Commissions: 1) CIB Guidelines on Coordination of Working Commissions and Task Groups; 2) CIB Guidelines on Awards and Commendations. The Board also confirmed the closure of the following Task Groups: TG87, TG92, TG95, TG97, and the extension of TG91 on Infrastructure until June 2022.
The Board was also pleased to hold an open consultative session with Commission Coordinators. At least one Board meeting per year will be open for Coordinators to attend and engage with the Board. Eighteen coordinators participated in the session and gave feedback to the Board on Scopus indexing, World Building Congress planning, and the recent web page access.
Student Chapters Committee (chaired by Albert Chan)
The Board was pleased to receive presentations from representatives of the two consortia of Student Chapters who were awarded funding in 2021 for the following research projects:
- Higher Degree by Research (HDR) training programs
- Post-Covid perspectives of ECRs, practitioners and entrepreneurs.
The Board also received a presentation from the winner of the 2021 Sebestyén Future Leaders Award winner, the Student Chapter at the University of Hong Kong. The relevance of all the projects relating to new ways of working in the post-Covid era was commended, and we look forward to hearing more at WBC 2022.
The Board agreed to invite up to 2 Student Chapter representatives to join the Student Chapters Committee and asked the Committee to develop proposals for how CIB can support PhD students around the world who do not have a local Student Chapter. Anyone with ideas to contribute to these discussions should please contact the secretariat.
Early Career Researchers (ECR) sub-committee (chaired by Srinath Perera)
Events held this year included a networking event with 11 CIB Commission Coordinators; ‘Meet the Editor’ with Prof Paul Chan, Construction Management & Economics; and a panel on “Finding Research Funding”. Attendance at these events grew from 50 to over 110, and the Secretariat will undertake a formal feedback survey on the ECR events to improve the value of this network.
At the moment the programme of events for the next 12 months is as follows:
- 14 October – Becoming a better journal article reviewer.
- 30 November – ‘Meet the Editor’ with Prof Mohan Kumaraswamy, Built Environment Project and Asset Management.
- Late 2021 / early 2022 – Converting conference papers to journal articles
- January / February 2022 – Teaching in Academia
- April 2022 – Career Advice and Applying for Research positions.
Membership and Communications Committee (chaired by Ron Wakefield)
Discussions continue about how to improve and better communicate the membership proposition and benefits of CIB, including how to better distinguish Full from Associate membership. Board members agreed to curate a trial offer of 12-months free limited membership for new members particularly in under-represented regions of the world such as Africa, South-East Asia and South America so that organisations can experience the potential benefits of participation.
Third-Party Funding
The Board noted progress by the task group chaired by CIB Vice President Mark Hastak in four areas: a proposed workshop with Canadian financial institutions on risks to their investments arising from climate change, which if successful will be capable of rolling out in other regions; proposals to charitable Foundations including those in the built environment sector; proposed collaboration with the United Nations starting with a meeting with UN-OPS in Copenhagen whilst the Board was ‘in town’; and a ‘CIB Day’ in October 2022 of coordinated activity and promotion to be led by Board members in different regions of the world.
Budget 2022
Following approval of the new subscription levels for 2022 at the General Assembly in June, the Board was pleased to approve the budget for 2022 in line with the agreed business plan.
CIB Honorary Membership
CIB’s Constitution enshrines a category of Honorary Members who are appointed by the Board by virtue of the special contribution they have made to CIB over the years in promoting international building research in the widest sense of the word. The list of 23 such Honorary Members awarded over the years is available here, and the Board approved details of an open and transparent call for nominations before the end of 2021 with a view to awarding new Honorary Memberships at the World Building Congress in June 2022. Members of the Board and Commission Coordinators are invited to watch out for this call.
Succession planning for the Board 2022-25
In November all CIB Members will receive an invitation to nominate candidates to stand for election for the Board for the triennium June 2022 – June 2025. Nominations will be collated and reviewed in December to February 2022 and a Board ‘Advice Sheet’ will be issued by the Board in March 2022 along with the notice of the General Assembly in June at which elections will be held if necessary.Don Ward
Chief Executive
October 2021
