The Innovative Construction Research Centre (ICRC) is dedicated to socio-technical systems research within the built environment, with particular emphasis on through-life performance in support of the client's business operations. Our vision is for a research centre that not only supports the competitiveness of the architectural, engineering, construction and facilities management sectors, but also supports societal needs for built infrastructure and the broader competitiveness of the UK economy. The domain of enquiry lies at the crucial interface between human and technical systems, thereby requiring an inter-disciplinary approach that combines engineering research methods with those derived from the social sciences. The ICRC's research portfolio is organised into six themes: (1) Integration of design, construction and facilities management. Concerns the through-life management of socio-technical systems within the built environment. Topics of consideration include: integrated logistic support, design for reliability and systems integration for building services. Of particular concern is the way that firms within the supply chain are integrated to provide solutions that add value to the client's business. (2) Knowledge management and organisational learning. Addresses the means of supporting knowledge flows across extended supply chains and the extent to which procurement systems learn across projects. Of particular importance is the design of learning mechanisms that extend across organisational boundaries. Also investigates the degree to which the construction sector can learn from other sectors, i.e. aerospace, automotive, retail, defence. (3) Human resource management and the culture of the industry. The construction sector is too often characterised by regressive approaches to human resource management (HRM) with little emphasis on developmental to support innovation. Of particular importance is the concept of 'high commitment management' that has emerged as a central component in the quest to link people management to business performance. Any attempt to improve HRM practices in the construction sector must also recognise cultural barriers to the implementation of new ways of working.(4) Innovative procurement. Includes legal, economic and organisational aspects of procurement systems. The last twenty years has seen a plethora of new procurement methods seeking to encourage different behaviours and allocations of risk. Many such initiatives experienced significant reality gaps between technological intent and resultant behaviours. Of particular importance in the current context is the notion of performance-based contracting which seeks to reward parties on the basis of building performance.(5) Innovation in through-life service provision. Most innovation in facilities management (FM) is concerned with service provision rather than the design and construction of the built asset. The inclusion of FM-service provision reflects the ICRC's strategic focus on through-life issues. The shift towards service provision is reflected in practice through procurement approaches such as PFI/PPP. But the issue has a wider significance as construction contractors increasingly embrace service philosophy. (6) Competitiveness, productivity and performance. Focuses on techniques for performance improvement, coupled with a broader emphasis on competitiveness and profitability within the marketplace. Techniques for performance improvement include: process mapping, benchmarking, value management, risk management and life-cycle costing. Also seeks to assess the competitiveness of the construction sector in comparison to other countries, and to achieve a broader understanding of the economic context within which firms operate.

Following a series of serious power blackout incidents in 2003, policy makers in the European Union and the USA have highlighted (i) the need for improved a.c. transmission grid infrastructure and advanced control technologies to enhance stability and security in an increasingly complex operating environment, and (ii) the importance of emerging measurement-based technology towards achieving such enhanced operation. The concept of this proposal is a system for transmission security assessment using the emerging measurement technologies of high-bandwidth SCADA systems and the wide area measurement systems (WAMS) which are based on time-synchronized phasor measurement units. It will lead to better situational awareness and initiate control action for optimal operation closer to loading constraints while reducing the risks of blackouts.Very recent developments in measurement-based analyses being used in oil, gas and chemicals plants point the way towards much better signal analysis applications for the emerging measurement-based technologies in power transmission systems. The measurement-based system proposed in this project would greatly extend the basic methods that are used at present and will lead to localization and real-time diagnosis of the root causes of threats to transmission system security and actions to control the situation. It offers a more predictive, responsive and accurate approach than the transmission system models which are currently used, while the signal analysis methods now being used in experimental WAMS and high-bandwidth SCADA systems would advance from their current narrow emphasis on Fourier methods adopted from the aerospace industries. For instance the project would develop signal analysis methods for use when transient events excite system non-linearities. This will provide a much more accurate indication of the true situation during developing emergencies.This project is timely and is giving an immediate response to research needs identified in the Spring of 2006 in policy documents from the EU and US. Success in shifting the emphasis from model-based to measurement-based assessments will benefit the wider field of a.c. transmission stability and security as well as creating an a.c. transmission security enhancement system in a fit state for technology transfer. A first-rate team has been assembled for the task, namely Imperial College London (expertise in robust damping control of inter-area oscillations) and UCL (expertise in measurement-based analysis for process systems), National Grid (provision of high-bandwidth SCADA data, system specification and testing, a UK industrial viewpoint) and ABB (provision of PMU data, system development, the industrial viewpoint from continental Europe). The university researchers will do part of the work on secondment with National Grid and ABB. It is quite realistic to expect success from this team.

A significant proportion of materials are produced in crystalline form. Many of these crystals are obtained by nucleation and growth from solution. This type of crystal production is often referred to as industrial crystallization. Crystallization is a key separation and purification unit in most of the pharmaceutical, food and fine chemical processes, with a significant impact on the efficiency and profitability of the overall process. Over 90% of all pharmaceutical products contain active ingredients produced in crystalline form and typical raw material cost for a single batch of active pharmaceutical ingredient is $1 to $2 million. Failure to meet product specifications incurs significant costs. For efficient downstream operation (such as filtration and drying) and product effectiveness (e.g. bioavailability, tablet stability) the control of crystal purity, size distribution and shape can be critically important. The crystal size and shape affect the dissolution rate, which is an important property of crystals for medicinal use. In the pharmaceutical industry, the relative impact of drug benefit versus adverse side effects can depend on the dissolution rate. Control of crystal size and shape enables the optimization of the dissolution rate to maximize the benefit while minimizing the side effects. Poor control of crystal size and shape can also result in unacceptably long filtration or drying times, or in extra processing steps, such as recrystallization or milling, and can influence the purity of the product which is especially important in the food and pharmaceutical industries, in which the crystals are consumed. Improved control of crystallization processes offer possibilities for better product quality and improved process efficiency, for example by reducing time to market (and extending the length of time before patent expiration), and the reduction of compromised batches, therefore providing significant increase in quality of life, for example by making new drugs available more quickly and at lower cost. However, controlling crystallization is challenging due its high nonlinearity and its high sensitivity to process conditions. The aim of the research is to develop a systematic and comprehensive framework for controlling pharmaceutical crystal formation that incorporates first-principles simulation models, efficient dynamic optimization and model based control algorithms, as well as novel mathematical analysis techniques. The approach will allow to control the shape of the crystal and the overall form of the size distribution by repeatedly solving a constrained nonlinear optimization problem in real-time that will adjust the operating conditions to achieve the desired targets, and guarantees that the process operates within feasible conditions. Uncertainties in the operating conditions will be incorporated in the controller design to reduce variability of the product quality from its desired value. Measurements provided by in situ process analytical technology will be used in real-time by the feedback control strategy to estimate and predict the product quality for different operating conditions. This technique will be useful in treating several industrially important key problems in crystallization, such as controlling the formation of desired polymorphs and/or achieving consistent product quality despite of uncertainties due to scale-up. The end result of the project will be a novel methodology for crystallization control, which will provide a comprehensive framework (including model, algorithm, software and equipment) for the robust design of desired polymorph, crystal shape as well as the form of the crystal size distribution for specific applications (e.g. drug delivery and dosage, or proteomics), opening the way toward systematic crystal engineering in the future.

Following a series of serious power blackout incidents in 2003, policy makers in the European Union and the USA have highlighted (i) the need for improved a.c. transmission grid infrastructure and advanced control technologies to enhance stability and security in an increasingly complex operating environment, and (ii) the importance of emerging measurement-based technology towards achieving such enhanced operation. The concept of this proposal is a system for transmission security assessment using the emerging measurement technologies of high-bandwidth SCADA systems and the wide area measurement systems (WAMS) which are based on time-synchronized phasor measurement units. It will lead to better situational awareness and initiate control action for optimal operation closer to loading constraints while reducing the risks of blackouts.Very recent developments in measurement-based analyses being used in oil, gas and chemicals plants point the way towards much better signal analysis applications for the emerging measurement-based technologies in power transmission systems. The measurement-based system proposed in this project would greatly extend the basic methods that are used at present and will lead to localization and real-time diagnosis of the root causes of threats to transmission system security and actions to control the situation. It offers a more predictive, responsive and accurate approach than the transmission system models which are currently used, while the signal analysis methods now being used in experimental WAMS and high-bandwidth SCADA systems would advance from their current narrow emphasis on Fourier methods adopted from the aerospace industries. For instance the project would develop signal analysis methods for use when transient events excite system non-linearities. This will provide a much more accurate indication of the true situation during developing emergencies.This project is timely and is giving an immediate response to research needs identified in the Spring of 2006 in policy documents from the EU and US. Success in shifting the emphasis from model-based to measurement-based assessments will benefit the wider field of a.c. transmission stability and security as well as creating an a.c. transmission security enhancement system in a fit state for technology transfer. A first-rate team has been assembled for the task, namely Imperial College London (expertise in robust damping control of inter-area oscillations) and UCL (expertise in measurement-based analysis for process systems), National Grid (provision of high-bandwidth SCADA data, system specification and testing, a UK industrial viewpoint) and ABB (provision of PMU data, system development, the industrial viewpoint from continental Europe). The university researchers will do part of the work on secondment with National Grid and ABB. It is quite realistic to expect success from this team.

Biopharmaceutical manufacturing continues to evolve with an increased emphasis on underpinning science and engineering. Effective deployment of contemporary knowledge in science and engineering throughout the product life cycle will facilitate manufacturing efficiencies and regulatory adherence for biopharmaceuticals. Fundamental to this paradigm shift has been the drive to adopt an integrated systems approach based on science and engineering principles for assessing and mitigating risks related to poor product and process quality. Changes have been enabled as a consequence of the regulatory authorities introducing a new risk-based pharmaceutical quality assurance system. The traditional approach to manufacture has been to accommodate product variability into the specifications and fix operational strategies to ensure repeatability. Developments in measurement technology have invited changes in operational strategy. This revised approach is based on the application of Quality by Design (QbD), underpinned by process analytical technology (PAT) to yield products of tighter quality and more assured safety. QbD is defined as the means by which product and process performance characteristics are scientifically designed to meet specific objectives. Practical improvements therefore demand a knowledge base of science and engineering understanding to identify the interrelationship between variables and integrate the learning into different manufacturing scenarios. The focus of the Centre is to address the challenges emerging from this paradigm shift and to train a new generation of students with competencies in all stages of commercial biopharmaceutical process development. Critical to this is to ensure they have the skills to work at the discipline interfaces in the areas of biosystem development, upscaled upstream process engineering, and the engineering and development of downstream processing. The training will be formulated around three elements that form the backbone of achieving an enhanced understanding of the process. The three elements are (i) Measurement, Data and Knowledge Management, (ii) Enhance Available Knowledge and (iii) Use Knowledge More Effectively. The power of the approach being adopted is that it is equally applicable to established bioprocesses based on microbial and animal cell culture, as well as emerging areas including stem cells, marine biotechnology and bio-nanotechnology. The rationale for proposing a Centre in this area is to address a well recognised problem, a lack of appropriately trained personnel, who will deliver the next generation of biopharmaceutical development. These issues have been clearly articulated in a series of reports. SEMTA reported that over a quarter of bioscience companies do not have sufficient science skills. 39% of bioscience/pharmaceutical companies have long-term vacancies; with 22% having skill shortages in the science arena (five times that for other sectors). Lord Sainsbury, concerned at the rapidly changing nature of the bioscience business, set up the BIGT and commissioned Bioscience 2015. One of the strong messages raised was the serious shortfall in trained staff. Furthermore a quantitative assessment of the increase needed of trained people entering the sector was made by bioProcessUK. They estimated an increase of 100 trained personnel was required on top of the current 150 doctoral level candidates graduating per year. It is not simply a matter of increasing the number of trained persons. The Centre will also address the limitations of the current UG training of engineers, chemists and biologists which does not prepare them for the challenge of working in process development distinguished by disciplinary interfaces. The proposed programme will address a strategic shortfall and produce a new generation of graduates with the appropriate inter-disciplinary skills to drive both the research agenda and knowledge transfer of underlying concepts into industry.