The aim of the CEE JRI is to generate new understanding in the interrelated fields of civil and environmental engineering, and apply the results to practical applications that address societal needs in the areas of adapting to climate change, sustainable development, infrastructure development, and personal and national security.
Civil and environmental engineering are the broadest of engineering disciplines making it difficult to define clear boundaries. This is in fact a strength, which makes them an exciting and dynamic discipline able to adapt with changing times to provide novel and innovative solutions to the myriad emerging challenges of the modern world.
These include the conventional areas of quality of life, public health and welfare as well as the emerging key goal of UK government policy: sustainable development. Sustainable development encompasses concerns on environment and climate change, resource depletion, dense and complex urban environments, changing demographics in industrialised countries, rapid development and industrialisation in Asia, poverty in Africa, pressures on water resources and public disorder and terrorism.
Clearly many other disciplines are involved in the study of these challenges, but it is always engineers - and often primarily civil engineers - who must find solutions to them under severe economic constraints.
The JRI will build on existing strengths in the areas of:
- High Speed Rail Research
- Intelligent Infrastructure
- Contaminant Containment and Subsoil Environments
- Transportation
- Water Management
- Particulate and Granular Solids and Soils
- Structural Engineering
- Fire Safety Engineering
- Innovative materials for the built environment