May 2020/edition #10

Message from the CIB President Keith Hampson
Dear Colleagues and Members,This is a special newsletter ahead of our Board meetings, Commission Co-ordinatorsessions and General Assembly next week, which for the time in our 67-year history will
be held as online sessions using zoom.
I hope all CIB members, families and colleagues have stayed healthy during this periodof the Covid-19 global pandemic. We have all been affected in a big way, and whilst
some of our members are now starting to ease out of “lockdown”, we will all remain
severely impacted for many months to come.
The impact of the pandemic will be a major theme underpinning all our discussions nextweek, from the future of the construction and built environment sector around the world,to current and future ways of working for our members and of CIB ourselves. This is avery difficult time for all of us, and as CIB we have major challenges ahead to reinvent
ourselves, or at least to adapt to these new challenges.
We have a strong team in place, Don Ward as the new CEO plus Michael Behm asProgramme Director give us a high quality resource to support the work of theCommissions, and I hope we see a large turnout next week to hear your views andengage as many members as possible to collaborate in a major new programme of work.
We are very grateful for the support of our hosts, Aalborg University in Copenhagen, fortheir flexibility in accommodating the new formats required for these online meetings,and with a week to go we have over 70 registrations for the various sessions, so I hopeas many of you as possible will join us. I anticipate some very valuable discussions!

From Don Ward, CIB CEOFirstly, may I repeat the President’s best wishes for your continued
good health in these difficult times. It has been a strange time tocome in as CEO, but oddly it has perhaps been easier to get time withmembers and colleagues than might normally have been the case. As
a result, I have had so many great conversations with people who arecommitted to a modern value-adding CIB, so every cloud….
The secretariat team is really looking forward to next week’s meetings
and to working with you all to achieve the most productive session wecan in the limited time available. Our opportunity is to set us on a new course to“reinvent” or at least relaunch CIB in the post-Covid era. As the newest addition to theteam I pledge my commitment to make CIB an organisation which is modern, responsive
and innovative in supporting our Members, Commissions and Student Chapters over thenext 2-3 years, and I look forward to meeting many of you for the first time next week.
The practical realities of next week’s online format are that we can expect the online
sessions to be much better attended than is usual when people have to travel, but onthe other hand the interactions will be more limited and the amount of time we cancommit is much less, due to our concern for your well-being by managing screen time.
Please accept this limitation but use all the channels to communicate with us during andbetween the sessions, before and afterwards. We are using zoom as the main platform,
MS Teams is also supporting some of the sessions, and we know that some organisations
restrict use of these. If you find you cannot connect, even by the phone options which
are available, the worst case is that you email us and make your views heard that way,or we can arrange a phone call if you prefer.
This message builds on what I hope has already been apparent, that our new team iscommitted to communication and engagement with you as the first step in resetting
what CIB offers to our Members. You will see below two articles on other ways in which
we have already taken small steps to improve this communication, with a report on themembers survey and the recent meetings with Working Commission Co-Ordinators, andyou will be pleased to know that a third is underway – the renewal of our website toprovide a modern interface for the work of all the different parts of our organisation.
Phase 1 of this should go live around the end of June.
See you next week.

Membership Survey Report
We would like to thank the 146 people who responded to our membership survey inApril. Please find attached a copy of a short report on the findings, this has provided thefoundation for a new Membership and Marketing Strategy to be considered by the Board
at its meeting in June. We will also feed in the results to the ongoing work of theProgramme Committee with the Working Commissions and the Student Chapters
Committee, as the survey reinforced the value placed by members on both activities.
With thanks once again, please feel free to direct any further comments to Don Ward,
Ron Wakefield as chair of the Membership and Marketing Committee, or indeed anyother Board member if you prefer.

CIB Coordinators’ consultations May 2020
Thirty-seven coordinators from CIB Task Groups and Commissions
attended MS Teams meetings on May 11 and 12. These followed onfrom an email reach-out to Coordinators asking for feedback, and thepurpose of the meetings was generally to enhance communication withand between Coordinators and to seek involvement in the setting ofCIB’s work programme.
The two sessions ensured all time zones had an opportunity toparticipate at a civilised time. CIB President Keith Hampson attended
both sessions, as did Don Ward, CIB CEO. Both Keith and Don
emphasized the importance of hearing and valuing Coordinators’ views and committing
to the development of CIB Student Chapters.
Coordinators expressed views to have more input to the Board. The June Board meeting
hosted by Aalborg University in Denmark features two 1-hour blocks for Coordinators tomeet with Board members to provide input to CIB and future programmes. Thesemeetings are being held as online meetings and therefore a good turnout is anticipatedand welcomed. The sessions also discussed issues felt to be of particular importance, asfollows.
CIB Conference proceedings. The indexing and archiving of CIB conference
proceedings has been a long-standing discussion point amongst Coordinators, members,
and conference delegates. There remains no one best solution. If conference proceedings
are to be indexed in traditional academic search engineers (Scopus, Ei Compendex, Webof Science, etc.) there is a cost for open access, or the publication remains behind asubscription service which is not typically paid for by those outside of major academic
institutions. CIB has investigated MDPI and Springer as options. We are currently
evaluating others and hope to provide a number of options for Commissions, withfinancial options for the Board also to consider.
Impact of Covid19. The global pandemic has altered the way everyone does business.
How will conferences change? How do these changes affect publications stemming fromconferences? How will the sector as a whole be impacted, and how will built environment
research be affected in the short and long term? It is apparent the pandemic will be asignificant discussion point at the June Board meetings. CIB will evaluate and respond tomembers needs and desires in the post-Covid world. Cross-commission task groups
evaluating best practices within our global network will likely emerge.
Other themes. Among other topics discussed were ensuring that a group of
Coordinators has input into CIB’s current website upgrade, enthusiasm for seeking
additional methods to collaborate with researchers from developing countries, revisingmechanisms for planning and reporting Commissions’ research, and enhancing student
involvement through CIB Student Chapters.
Overall, the Coordinator meetings were well-attended, energetic, and collaborative. We
anticipate that future Coordinator meetings will invite speakers to share best practices
and themed presentations. In addition to communications with their Commission andTask Group Coordinators, members are encouraged to reach out to provide any feedback
and programme related ideas to Michael Behm, CIB Programme Director.

For further information on this newsletter or any other aspect of CIB’s work, please contact Debbie
Gray, Membership & Marketing Manager, at debbie.gray@cibworld.org or +1 (613) 727 1481 x100.