RIBA VP Research Strategy

Developing the research and innovation capability of the architecture profession is key to the future of the profession. Urgent action is needed to help members prepare for significant R & funding opportunities, most notably ￡4.7 billion of research funding coming through the Industries Strategy Challenge Fund over the next 4 years and the Construction Sector Deal which is part of the Industrial Strategy.

In December 2015 RIBA Council gave its unanimous support to the following vision:

By 2020 the RIBA will be the leading architectural intelligence network, facilitating innovation, and improving practice effectiveness and outcomes through research and knowledge sharing.

The plan now, is to integrate the following into RIBA business:

1. Develop the business case for Independent Research Organisation (IRO) status: this well-trodden path (for example Historic England, Kew Gardens & the British Library) will enable the Institute to re-invent itself as a leader in research and innovation distinct from other Institutions and will allow it to capitalize on research funding opportunities that it cannot currently access. It will require the Institute to support the development of in house research, reducing the cost of commissioning others, developing in house skills and career satisfaction in the process. A re-evaluation of the library as a professional resource will be part of the review.

2. The mainstreaming of Post Occupancy Evaluation: This will require a multipronged approach across the Institute, most notably in the way it awards prizes and recognition. The collection of evidence on the performance of buildings (both in terms of environmental and social value) is key to demonstrating the profession’s value and its ability to learn. 

3. A strategic study of the way in which the Institute and the profession grows, promotes and safeguards its knowledge: Possession of a distinct and valuable knowledge base is key to professional status. No other built environment institute has a library of the caliber of the RIBA and its cultural programmes present a considerable opportunity to promote and develop architectural research. The Knowledge Project task and finish group will examine how the institute and the profession is developing, promoting and capitalizing on its knowledge and will develop strategy to maximize the impact, reach and value of architectural knowledge capitalizing on the potential of digital technology.

4. Support practitioners in accessing research funding:  Architects are missing out on research funding and need to prepare for new opportunities such as the Industry Challenges Strategy Fund (￡4.7 billion over the next four years). A mechanism for publicizing research funding opportunities to architects needs to be delivered via the RIBA website and possibly through email bulletins, accompanied by advice where necessary.

5. Research Practice Leads Group Network. Building on the success of groups in London and Newcastle and on demand from architects regionally we aim to facilitate the development of research support groups in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Northern Ireland working with local academics and regional RIBA offices.

6. Social Value Post Occupancy Evaluation Toolkit. Social value is high on the policy agenda and is now integral to Treasury Green Book Evaluation. The Research Practice Leads are working with NEF and MHCLG to develop a simple toolkit for the demonstration of Social Value which we hope to deliver under the RIBA brand. 

Background

The ‘Royal Institute of British Architects’ in 1837 came into being with the blessing of a Royal Charter ‘for promoting and facilitating the acquirement of the knowledge of the various arts and sciences connected therewith’ (RIBA, 2009). Claims to being a profession rest on having access to a particular body of knowledge, so arguably the RIBA is architectural knowledge and its committees should be dedicated to the creation, protection and dissemination of that knowledge. However the architectural profession is very ambivalent about research, partly because of ancient and continuing debates about whether its activities stem from art (intangible creative genius) or science (tangible systematic testing), an artificial division that – in the current culture of audit - has allowed other built environment professionals to lay claim to large swathes of its activity, with resultant damage to the environment and architects fees.

Architecture research, was in the 1950s and 1960s was built on an evidence based social sciences modes. Most research took place governmental organisations that crossed disciplinary silos. A backlash against the evidence based approach emerging in the 1970s in Architecture led to a parting of the ways with the social sciences. At the same time shrinkage in interdisciplinary government architecture and planning departments meant that opportunities for built environment research were much reduced. Simultaneously architects fee scales were removed due to EU monopolies legislation meaning that architects’ income plummeted, leaving little resource for research and innovation in the private sector. Architecture became particularly academic and theoretical during the Post Modern 1980s and 1990s, with an undercurrent of work in sustainability continuing in the background in university laboratories. It was during this period Frank Duffy of DEGW (RIBA president 1993-1995) developed a prescient and remarkable vision for the RIBA as a knowledge based organisation which was largely ignored (Hay et al., 2017).

The advent of the UK Research Assessment Exercise in universities was a challenge to Architecture in particular as the field was not used to explaining its activities in research terms. It became increasingly difficult to be both a practitioner and an academic at a time when Professional Indemnity Insurance became compulsory for most types of practice. Academic architects became inward looking, focussed on developing written outputs and on servicing growing cohorts of fee paying students in ‘privatised’ universities which had themselves become businesses. The result has been further division between architectural practice and architectural academia and an education system which pays scant attention to employability.

New types of procurement, poor business skills and the development of competing professional disciplines – for example project managers - have led to the marginalisation of architects from the production of the built environment. The development of research in architectural practice is a real opportunity to develop new funding streams, forms of expertise and strategic focus (recent RIBA Benchmarking has shown a link between focus and fees), but very few architects acknowledge the research element of what they do. A particular collective problem and opportunity is post occupancy evaluation. Currently only 3% of UK practices go back to see if the projects that they did actually work (Samuel, 2018).

Over the last few years the chasm between practice and academia has started to decrease, partly in response to growing Research Council UK (RCUK) interest in Knowledge Exchange and impact. Architecture seems set to benefit from increasing funding opportunities in the Global and societal Challenges including: interdisciplinary urban research including energy, water, food and wellbeing; affordable housing; Creative industries collaboration; entrepreneurialism and business and of course digital tools and Artificial Intelligence.

Architecture is the lynchpin between the Creative Industries and the Built Environment sector - including the Construction, Facilities Management) and Real Estate industries. The Creative Industries, FM and Real Estate are major generators of growth at this time. The GVA of the CI increased by 37.5 per cent between 2008 and 2014. ‘Real Estate Activities’ had the next highest increase at 34.7 per cent (DCMS, 2016, p.13). FM is set to contribute ￡139 billion to the UK economy by 2021. It is odd that during this period the GVA of architecture has remained consistently below the Creative Industries average (UK Gov, 2016). Strategy to capitalise on the innovation potential of Architecture, linking it with these areas of growth is clearly needed.

Conclusion

Frank Duffy was prescient in emphasizing ‘an urgent need for architects to reaffirm the intellectual basis of their profession, to align it with other rapidly-developing disciplines to make sure that the design of the built environment takes its proper place in a society based increasingly upon the development and transmission of all kinds of knowledge’(Duffy, 1998, p. xiv). Let us hope, twenty years after this statement, that it is not too late