Areas covered include construction practice, management, building design and materials, ground engineering, water engineering and environmental issues. Funding contributions are sought from member subscriptions, and from Government and non-members on a project by project basis. Detailed work is contracted to the organisation judged in competition as being able to do the best quality of work within a fixed budget. Each project is guided by a project steering group, which contains representatives of project funders, individual specialists and representatives of different groups with experience or interest in the topic. When approved by the project steering group and after a delay period agreed by project funders, the output from projects is published for the benefit of members and is available to the industry at large.
Further dissemination takes place through seminars and by the production of videos or software.
It consists of a number of research projects of wide interest, the total annual cost of which exceeds 1M pounds. Core Programme members choose the programme, participate fully and obtain privileged early access to results. Support for Individual Projects Organisations with interest only in single research projects can participate financially and technically, so gaining involvement and early access to results.