BRE, the research organisation, has formed a partnership between industry and universities to make academic research more industry focused.

The BRE-Universities Partnership will establish four centres of excellence: a Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh; The Centre for Innovative Construction Materials at the University of Bath; The Centre for Energy Utilisation Research at the University of Strathclyde and the Centre for Sustainable Building Design Research at the University of Cardiff.

Launching the partnership on 23 January, environment minister Elliot Morley said these centres would be "a good way of beginning to bridge the gap between research and industry".

Sir Neville Simms, the new chairman of the BRE Trust said the UK's research base was excellent at producing ideas but industry often fails to capitalise on these ideas, creating a "knowledge transfer gap". He said that gap was "more pronounced" in the built environment.

Simms said the partnership would develop new research capabilities, pass on research to those delivering construction projects and encourage information to flow from industry to universities.

Source

Building Sustainable Design