In September CIB Chief Executive Don Ward travelled to Dubai to meet with Board member Taha Elhag at Heriot-Watt University in Dubai (HWUD). They discussed the CIB’s strategy for membership engagement and growth in the Middle East region, and held meetings with Dubai Municipality and Kuwait University which will both be followed up with invitations to join CIB. Don also spoke at the HWUD-supported Smart Construction Conference & Expo 2022 on the subject of “Creating excellence in construction – understanding the fundamentals”, with a focus on promoting the value of CIB.
Don journeyed on to meet CIB Board member Theo Haupt and senior faculty members at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. NMU have agreed to host the June 2023 meeting of the CIB Board, so it was important to address how to make the visit of CIB Board members as valuable as possible for NMU and the local industry as well as for CIB. Other topics of discussion included forming a new CIB Student Chapter, promoting engagement with CIB by early career researchers (ECRs) in South Africa, and how CIB can help researchers improve how they communicate their impact with practitioners and policy makers.
Theo and Don then relocated to Lanseria near Johannesburg, and first met with recent CIB Board member and Programme Committee Chair Chrisna duPlessis and her colleague Anika van Aswegen from University of Pretoria (UP). Topics of discussion again included a new CIB Student Chapter and promoting the engagement of early career researchers (ECRs), as well as progressing a campaign to resolve the classification of research in built environment disciplines.
The final focus of Don’s visit was to attend the annual conference of the Association of Schools of Construction in South Africa (ASOCSA) and to give a keynote presentation on “Innovation and global trends in our sector”. Key messages included the role of CIB in supporting researchers and their institutions in southern Africa, and the vital importance of promoting the impact of research including its contribution to progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
As far as the conference papers were concerned, the dominant themes were sustainability (both environmental and social including health, safety and well-being) and digitalisation of construction in the region, but other topics which caught the eye included the impact of Covid-19, challenges for SMEs, development of informal settlements, and advanced materials as a substitute for concrete.
It was great to see that most of the universities in South Africa were represented at the ASOCSA conference, and it was a pleasure to talk to so many both faculty and PhD students committed to research and education to make a positive difference in southern Africa. As ever much of the value lay in conversations outside the formal proceedings, and not only did we recruit a significant number of South African ECRs to join our global network, we helped set in motion a debate about the future development of the South African construction sector as well as the consistent theme throughout the conference of how to ‘bridge the gap’ between academia and industry.
Don would like to thank Taha Elhag and Theo and Ferial Haupt for their hospitality as well as great organisation of his visits, which successfully raised the profile of CIB in UAE and South Africa, improved existing member engagement, and began the process of membership growth in both regions. It is planned to accelerate this initial momentum when Don returns for further conferences in these regions before the end of the year. Any comments, requests for meetings or suggestions for contact with third party organisations would be welcome at any time, please contact [email protected].
