New project to secure the legacy of Mistra InfraMaint
Our research program is a little more than halfway through, and it’s time to start thinking about how the knowledge and results we will have built up over nine years will live on and be put to the greatest possible use – at multiple levels.
Building asset management as a research area has been Mistra InfraMaint’s focus since 2018, and although we are still at the beginning of our second and final phase, it is time to start thinking about how what we do in the program can live on.
We are doing this in a newly launched project, The Legacy of Mistra InfraMaint. The project will explore different paths for how the knowledge can be made permanent, live on and develop even after the end of the program.
– Among other things, we will be looking at how asset management can be incorporated into different courses, both at university level and in vocational training. We have also looked at how the topic can be addressed in different industries, and will be talking to industry associations in road, rail and water. Then there is also a political track, which is about how our results can reach and engage policy makers and also research performers. Those are the more conventional tracks, we also have the opportunity to think a bit outside the box and there may be other types of products and results from the program that can live on in themselves – like different types of innovations, decision support tools, self-assessment methods and so on. Or, for that matter, our collaborative projects,” says project manager Robert Gladh.
The work begins with a feasibility study, which includes workshops, discussions and meetings with representatives from the industry and with Mistra InfraMaint’s Board, to pick up ideas and needs in everyone’s respective areas.
– Based on that, we’ll draw up a plan for the future, so the next step depends on what we come up with in the feasibility study. We’ve been thinking about this work for a long time, but the concrete work is starting now and we’ll be working all the way to the finish line with Mistra InfraMaint,’ says Robert Glad.
The aim of the project is to ensure that as much as possible of the knowledge built up lives on in the future. Preferably all the way from the political level down to the nuts and bolts of operations.
– That is to say, from our narrowest research on inspection routines at facilities or a specific part of a switch, research that can be applied directly in practice or in training, to the higher decision-making level where it’s about highlighting the importance of infrastructure care, not least to ensure that they function in crisis and war,’ says Robert Gladh.