THE LONG TERM VIEW

BUILT FOR LIFE

Central to the UCEM vision, both now and in the future, is its core purpose; to provide accessible, relevant and cost-effective education, enabling students to enhance careers, increase professionalism and contribute to a sustainable built environment.

Our Vision: To be the centre of excellence for built environment education

As the centre of excellence for built environment education, UCEM will focus on maximising its impact and influence on both education and industry. In practical terms, this means a focus on delivering greater impact through; student outcomes, widening participation, student satisfaction and reach, whilst increasing influence by offering a greater depth and breadth of education, engaging more with education and industry partners and actively collaborating.

UCEM ‘INSPIRE’

A key part of UCEM’s efforts to maximise both our influence and impact is our ‘INSPIRE’ events.

These are themed sessions that convene influential stakeholders to consider the various challenges facing the sector relevant to our community, whether that is the built environment or higher education so that we can together:

Influence for Skills, Productivity, Industry, Research & Education

UCEM’s INSPIRE events are based on the following three principles:

   Thought leadership

Demonstrate leadership by drawing together the priorities of the largest and most influential players within the built environment and education sectors.

   Facilitate collaboration

Offering collaboration so that the best thoughts and ideas on topical issues can be aggregated.

   Shaping policy and practice

Taking the best outputs and recommendations from INSPIRE events and promoting these to key decision-makers.

UCEM INSPIRE events can be about a wide range of topics, with each event focusing on a specific issue.

Enabling successful built environment apprenticeships

This INSPIRE event convened a select group of over 30 experts in built environment apprenticeships, from industry, government and sector bodies to identify barriers to effective professional and higher technical apprenticeships and propose potential solutions.

We were delighted to be joined by representatives from organisations such as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Chartered Institute of Building, the Institute of Civil Engineers, AECOM and Atkins, amongst many others.

To facilitate the collection of detailed feedback from attendees, the event ran in a ‘workshop’ style, featuring smaller group exercises, interspersed with presentations from the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education and the Valuation Office Agency.

The resulting report: Enabling Successful Built Environment Apprenticeships: A Call to Action, recommends:

  • More responsive Apprenticeship Standards reacting to the needs of the sector
  • A simplified apprenticeship funding system
  • Designing more holistic apprenticeship success measures.

Leadership for sustainability in the built environment

This INSPIRE event was focused on the need for effective leadership in the quest for a more sustainable built environment.

A half-day ‘Conference’ style event featured a series of expert speeches, presentations and panel discussions from representatives of organisations such as Mace, Jones Lang LaSalle and the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership.

The day saw a discussion of developments in meeting sustainability goals in practice, the sharing of ideas and the highlighting of innovative practices.

This video summarises the day or you can read our series of Articles detailing each of the event’s sessions:

Joined up leadership for an inclusive built environment

The event united experts to underscore the necessity of collaborative efforts in fostering a more inclusive built environment sector.

Supported by the Construction Leadership Council, Construction Inclusion Coalition, the Construction Industry Council and Building People, the event convened leaders, campaigners and educators.

The day comprised a mix of speakers, panellists and a group workshop session with nearly 80 attendees representing organisations such as AtkinsRéalis, Bidwells, Black Females in Architecture, CIAT, CIOB, Greater London Authority Heathrow, Lendlease, MACE, NHBC, Queen Mary University, RICS, Savills, Tuffin Ferraby Taylor, Skanska UK and Women in Property, amongst many others.

Read more about the event

Get involved

If you have any questions about INSPIRE or would like to suggest a topic for, or collaborate with UCEM on, a future INSPIRE event then please get in touch by emailing: inspire@ucem.ac.uk