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INNOVATION EN CONSTRUCTION, Winter 1997
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The National Fire Laboratory (NFL), primarily responsible for the IRC's Fire Risk Management Program, has reorganized its program to ensure optimum results from its vital work. This reorganization has been prompted by the desire to better address the current and future needs of its clients as well as significant fire issues that have a negative impact on Canada's economy.
There is, in particular, a growing need for more fire research to support the introduction of objective-based codes in Canada (projected for 2001), a government concern and priority, given their potential for reducing fire-safety costs while maintaining a high level of fire safety.
Since this need comes at a time of reduced direct government funding for research -- including fire research -- the NFL has become involved in partnerships in which both private and public sectors invest in projects, as does the NFL itself. These partnership projects tend to fall midway between fundamental research and product development and to generate technology with both short- and long-term benefits to the partners.
Partnerships among private sector firms, government agencies, universities and IRC that are directed at solving specific, well defined research problems are becoming more common today. By sharing the risks and costs of the research, all parties can derive economic advantages and, as a further consequence, new information becomes available to support Canadian codes and standards, including objective-based codes.
For all those involved, the research partnership offers participants a means of obtaining good value for their investments of time and money -- costs to a specific partner are minimized while benefits accrue to all.
At the Institute for Research in Construction (IRC), partnerships are based on the strategic research that precedes them -- innovative applied research that builds on fundamental research ideas and that is based on an analysis of industry needs. At this (strategic) stage of a project, the investment is primarily IRC's, since the risk is greatest. At later stages, when the risk is reduced, partners share a larger portion of the costs.
Partnerships are followed by "research enhancement" -- work that goes beyond the stated objectives of the partnership. The purpose of this work, which usually involves further analysis, modelling and publication, is twofold: it maximizes IRC's investment in both strategic research and the partnership, and it helps ensure that the entire construction industry sees the practical results of the partnership. Research enhancement also provides researchers with opportunities to publish in peer-reviewed journals enabling them to maintain their research "edge" in the international community. As well as giving IRC and its researchers increased credibility and visibility, research enhancement often leads to new strategic research projects and research partnerships.
Increasingly, the NFL is using this model in carrying out its research projects, as it provides the economic basis for the NFL's financial well-being, and serves the information needs of both public and private sector clients. It also ensures a continuing flow of valuable projects with the potential for future partnerships.
The NFL's research remains focused in the same two broad areas -- fire-risk assessment and fire-control measures. These are now articulated into four distinct projects (see box on facing page) which focus on the needs of its research partners. Through this reorganization, IRC's Fire Risk Management Program continues its work to provide safer, more cost-effective living and working environments.
