Legacy reception - Hub shifts focus to deployment, Keith Waller

Programme Director Keith Waller spells out his ambition and vision as the Construction Innovation Hub receives seed funding for the next phase of its programme.

Now is the time – the moment of opportunity – for the construction sector to go further, to go faster. Now is the time to be bold. The Construction Innovation Hub has achieved much since its inception in 2018. Four years on, my ambition is now for the solutions we have developed together with our many partners to be deployed more widely and more quickly.

While the Hub’s four-year contract is coming to an end, our programme – our mission, our ambition – isn’t.

I am delighted that The Construction Innovation Hub has secured seed funding for our next phase. That stage is all about deployment. It is about how we can work with government, clients, and industry to implement the outputs from our programme.

I want our sector to be proud of who we are, what we have produced and what we add to our society, our environment, and our economy.

So, if the vision is for sustainable, innovative, and highly productive businesses, with a talented, diverse and motivated workforce, delivering zero carbon, safe, high-quality buildings and infrastructure that really meet people’s needs, how can we make it a reality?

Well, it will not be achieved through business as usual from our sector. It will not be through warm words and a few tactical actions. Nor will it be achieved through a whole series of disconnected plans.

We need a clear vision and a joined-up programme. We need government, clients, and industry to align behind this vision. And we need a route to implement it.

The Hub’s next phase of work addresses these needs. It focuses on embedding the Value Toolkit with government, and paving the way for better, value-based decisions. It’s about working with government clients – and their supply chain partners – to accelerate how advanced manufacturing solutions can deliver their future schools, hospitals and more. It’s about creating the right enabling framework for the long-term and sustainable transformation of our sector.

We need to deploy the solutions we have developed together more widely and more quickly. Why is that important? Not because The Hub has developed them, nor because we as the Hub will gain some commercial advantage from their use. We don’t. The Hub has been – and will always be – a market enabler, not a market player.

My ambition for these solutions to be used is because:

• They support productive growth in our economy and improve the safety and quality of the built environment;
• These solutions will drive a faster path to net zero;
• They deliver greater value to citizens and to society. These solutions support better outcomes; and crucially
• They will help make forging careers in our sector more attractive to future talent.

It is thanks to our many partners and stakeholders over the past four years that the Hub, and the wider sector, has achieved what we have so far.

I would like to say thank you – in advance – for your ongoing support as we move forward, for being bold, for sharing our ambition – and enabling us together to make a difference.

Please see some photos from our legacy reception at the House of Lords in September 2022: