Three Bowen Jenkins Legacy Fund projects are underway currently tackling key prevailing topics in the industry which will deliver a raft of valuable new thinking.
Dr Michelle Turner and Prof Helen Lingaard (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia) are exploring the interaction between bodily pain and mental health in their ‘Work-ability” research; Dr Alejandro Veliz Reyes and Prof Pieter de Wilde (Plymouth University, UK) will be exploring how to embed digital practices into traditional cob construction techniques; and Dr Sarah Barnard and Prof Andrew Dainty (Loughborough University, UK) are tackling “LGBT in Construction: Exploring Experiences to Inform Inclusive Practices”.
This proposed research explores lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) in construction in order to inform developments in employment practices in the sector.
Although there has been a sustained focus in recent years on understanding the experiences of underrepresented groups in construction such as women and minority ethnic workers, there has been a paucity of work which has explored the experiences of LGBT workers within the industry.
Also in the pipeline will be four projects from 2015 recipients due for completion by the end of this year including research on not-for-profit retirement villages by Dr Box Xia and Mr Xin Hu (Queensland Unversity of Technology).
The Bowen Jenkins research fund was established to enable the CIOB to fund and support research projects in the built environment, and is made possible by a legacy left by Bowen Jenkins FCIOB. It is open to CIOB members and non-members internationally.
Image: Siraanamwong | Dreamstime
