Manchester Urban Observatory
Inadequate infrastructure costs the nation £2M a day, and extreme events can cost hundreds of millions more. To plan for the future, UKCRIC will provide evidence to de-risk, help prioritise and provide evidence for investment.
UKCRIC will understand how to make the system of systems that constitutes the nation’s infrastructure more resilient to extreme events and more adaptable to changing circumstances and contexts, and how it can provide services that are more affordable, accessible and useable to the whole population.
Integrated Urban Infrastructure Labs
The UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) are establishing a network of interlinked urban infrastructure ‘observatories’, at sites across the UK, for the digital capture, mapping, sensing, monitoring, and testing of real urban infrastructure systems over the long term. The key objective is to capture the complex interrelations and interactions of real systems with the environment, people and society. The research will be enabled by close collaboration with local government and industrial partners.
A national network of urban laboratories
Research laboratories, and modelling and simulation facilities, are supported by a network of observatories, including the Manchester Urban Observatory, which will help understand long term performance and wider interactions of infrastructure within the wider urban system.
Deploying sensors across a variety of urban sites, this national ‘observatory’ will enable the digital capture, mapping, monitoring and testing of real cities and infrastructure at a variety of scales, over time.
World-class national infrastructure research capability
This is a collaboration between many of the UK's leading universities that is supported by a £138m investment from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills to develop new state-of-the-art research laboratories.