Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium

The UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC)[1] was established in January 2011.[2] The ITRC provides data and modelling to help governments, policymakers and other stakeholders in infrastructure make more sustainable and resilient infrastructure decisions. It is a collaboration between seven universities and more than 55 partners from infrastructure policy and practice.[3]

During its first research programme, running from 2011 to 2016,[4] ITRC developed the world's first national infrastructure system-of-systems model, known as NISMOD (National Infrastructure Systems Model)[5] which has been used to analyse long-term investment strategies for energy, transport, digital communications, water, waste water and solid waste. This work is described in the book The Future of National Infrastructure,[6] an introduction to the NISMOD models and tools describing their application to inform infrastructure planning in Britain.

The second phase of this programme (2016–2021) is called ITRC-MISTRAL where MISTRAL stands for Multi-Scale Infrastructure Systems Analytics.[7] MISTRAL allowed ITRC to develop the national-scale modelling in ITRC to simulate infrastructure at city, regional and global scales.

Based in the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute,[8] ITRC is led by Director Jim Hall who is also Professor of Environmental Risks at the University of Oxford.[9]

Funding: The ITRC is funded by two programme grants from the UK Engineering and Physical Science and Research Council (EPSRC). The 2011–2016 ITRC programme grant was £4.7m and the 2016–2021 grant, for ITRC-MISTRAL, is £5.4m.[10]

Consortium: The seven universities making up the ITRC consortium are: University of Southampton,[11] University of Oxford, Newcastle University, Cardiff University, University of Cambridge, University of Leeds and University of Sussex.

Partners: ITRC's partners are from across the infrastructure sector.[12] They include infrastructure investors such as the World Bank, consultancies including Ordnance Survey and KPMG, providers such as Siemens, High Speed 2 (HS2), Network Rail and National Grid, policy-makers (i.e. Environment Agency) and regulatory bodies (OFCOM).

References

  1. ^ Mullally, Paul (2013-10-14). "ITRCbrochure1" (PDF). www.landecon.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  2. ^ Environment. "UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC): PROGRAMME GRANT: Long term dynamics of interdependent infrastructure systems". environment.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  3. ^ "Partners | ITRC". www.itrc.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  4. ^ "UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC): PROGRAMME GRANT: Long term dynamics of interdependent infrastructure systems". UK Research and Innovation. 2016-01-01. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  5. ^ "GeoConnexion article – NISMOD-DB – Geospatial Engineering @ Newcastle University". Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  6. ^ Hall, Jim W.; Tran, Martino; Hickford, Adrian J.; Nicholls, Robert J., eds. (2016). The Future of National Infrastructure: A System-of-Systems Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107588745. ISBN 978-1-107-06602-1.
  7. ^ author, EPSRC. "Grants on the web". gow.epsrc.ukri.org. Retrieved 2021-01-28. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  8. ^ "Environmental Change Institute - University of Oxford". www.eci.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  9. ^ "Jim Hall | University of Oxford - Academia.edu". oxford.academia.edu. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  10. ^ "Extreme weather: Britain's cities need radical design overhaul - or they will become unliveable". Sky News. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
  11. ^ "Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium | Engineering | University of Southampton". www.southampton.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  12. ^ "Partners | ITRC". www.itrc.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-28.