Briefing: Infrastructure business models, valuation and innovation for local delivery

The UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council have launched a £3·5 million, 4-year research programme to develop innovative business models for delivering infrastructure. Richard Dawson, Claire Walsh, Phil Purnell and Chris Rogers introduce infrastructure business models, valuation and innovation for local delivery (iBUILD). A growing population, extreme weather, decarbonisation, a proliferation of new technologies and their integration with ageing, existing systems are just some of the pressures on modern infrastructure. Unfortunately, the rate of investment in infrastructure has not kept up with the pace of change, and this is further complicated by fragmented, often reactive, regulation and governance arrangements. The UK Treasury Select Committee noted that existing infrastructure business models provide poor value (HM Treasury, 2011), but few alternatives are available; a point picked up by Infrastructure UK (Infrastructure UK, 2011) who called for research centres to be founded to address this. The iBUILD Centre will address this through development of a suite of alternative infrastructure business models, ranging from reforms to existing approaches to radical new models, each enabling more effective delivery of local infrastructures.