Profile

Biography

No information for the moment

Research Summary

My professional research career started in late 1996 as I had substantially finished my PhD and therefore became a junior faculty member working with Graham Ive on a funded research project that eventually led to the book 'The Constructors' Key Guide to PFI'. The success of this led to an additional funded research project that generated a second book 'The Role of Cost Saving and Innovation in PFI Projects'. This interest in PFI procurement (and then PPPs) has stayed strong ever since and most recently led to the extremely successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership project with KPMG that examined the operational cost and performance of schools and hospitals built in the recent past in the UK and that allowed PFI and non-PFI procurement to be assessed via robust operational cost and performance data.

In other areas my predominant interest is in projects and their management. I have worked on a number of funded and non-funded research projects that have looked at the areas of risk management (specifically how project risks are identified) - these were two EPSRC funded grants; the complexity of managing refurbishment works in live operational environments - the RACMIT project funded by EPSRC. I've also done work on international project performance comparisons (comparing facilities built as part of the Channel Tunnel) and, when I was back in industry (1999-2004) - I was involved in research that looked at developing rigorous techniques for computing whole life costs.

I am currently involved in a self-funded research project that is seeking to better understand what happens at the 'front end' of major/complex projects. It is proving to be a fascinating exercise as we are engaging with 'top drawer' organisations who are describing their processes and issues - often in candid detail. The outputs from this will be journal papers and possibly a book.

In the period 1996-1999 I established a strategic research interest resulting from my involvement in the UK government's Foresight activities. These required the exploration of the long term future issues for a range of sectors and I was involved in the area for the built environment. This led to the establishment of the Built Environment Research Unit (BEFU) that created a complex built environment scenario for the London area built environment. It was funded by corporate members.

Research outputs

1, 2, 3

Research activities