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Evaluation of

the Civil Engineering Department at DTU

Final report February 2008

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List of Contents

Introduction

1. General overview 2. Ranking

3. Barriers and actions to be taken 3.1 Cultural change

3.2 Management 3.3 Research Funding 3.4 PhD students

3.5 Research-teaching balance 4. Re-organizational steps

5. Evaluation of sections

5.1 Section for construction materials 5.2 Section for geotechnics

5.3 Section for building physics and services 5.4 Section for structural engineering

5.5 Section for planning and management of building processes Appendix

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Introduction

The Technical University of Denmark, DTU, has decided that the research of all departments shall be evaluated every five years. This year the Department of Civil Engineering, BYG•DTU, has been chosen for evaluation. The aim of the evaluation is to have quality, quantity and prospects of the research effort assessed by a panel of world leading experts in order to enable a comparison with activities at similar university departments and to pass judgement on the departmental strategy. The assessment is based on a three-day site visit and was concluded with a short report by the panel. Prior to the visit, BYG•DTU prepared a self assessment report and made it available for the panel. The panel consists of six persons, covering the different fields of research of the Department of Civil Engineering:

The research evaluation is intended to establish a benchmark for checking this goal by the end of the planning period. Since BYG•DTU’s strategy 2008 is coming to an end, and the research evaluation shall serve as a concluding activity for this strategy period and become a basis for the department’s ongoing strategy renewal activities,

The Expert Panel including:

Arnon Bentur, Technion, Israel (chairman) Carl-Eric Hagentoft, Chalmers, Sweden Alberto Carpinteri, Politecnico di Torino, Italy Sarah Springman, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Stuart Green, University of Reading, United Kingdom Bjørn Lykke Jensen, Teknologisk Institut, Denmark

visited the department during the period 14 – 16 of November, 2007. It met with the Dean of Research, The Head of the CE Department and visited the five sections. During this visit, presentations to the committee were made, it toured some of the research facilities and met for an open discussion with each of the section heads and the key personnel of the section. In addition, the committee had two closed meetings, one with young academic staff (Assistant and Associate Professors, who have been recruited in recent years) and the other with a few PhD students. The objective of these meetings was to obtain direct input from representatives of these two groups of young researchers, who can be considered to make the body of the future leaders and researchers at the CE Department at DTU.

The report addresses the various issues entrusted by DTU to be evaluated by the committee, and it also highlights some issues that the committee believes require special attention.

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1. General Overview

• DTU is striving to position itself as a leading research university.

• The CE Department has embarked on an ambitious program to turn around its culture from being largely teaching oriented to a more balanced research oriented Department, and be positioned in its research at a level of "high international quality". This is a step to fulfil the vision of becoming a leading European civil engineering institution, and through it become a preferred partner in collaborations with companies and institutions in the construction sector.

• The spirit driving for the change at the Department management level is clearly evident. The leadership and enthusiasm is radiating from this level and has made its mark on changing the environment in the Department and successfully engraining this vision at the various levels of the Department, the section heads and the individual faculty.

• It is pleasing to see that women professors provide role models to younger undergraduate and graduate students that it is possible to make the break through the "glass ceiling".

• The need for high level research and international visibility seems to be in the mind set of the Department as a whole.

• The organization of the Department in five sections with professional identity reflecting the focus areas of the Department can clearly support the achievement of the vision.

• A clear road map for elevating the Department is in place: Generation change (2003-2006), National reputation (2004-2007), New education programmes (2001-2008), Innovation and public service organization (2007-2010), Research output and quality (2008-2011), International impact (2009-2012).

• These changes seem to have already made an impact, and the level of the research of the Department seems to have moved one level up (on average), from low national to high national.

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2. Ranking

The overall ranking of the Department in research is “high national” on average.

As outlined above, this seems to be a step up from the level of “low national”.

There is variability between the different sections, with some doing better and some worse, and this will be highlighted and discussed for each of the sections.

There is a need to develop mechanisms for continuous benchmarking of the department and identify competitors against whom benchmarking should be carried out. For that purpose there is a need to identify the "opposition" in the top 30, 20 and 10 rankings, and resolve the methods to be used to determine when this goal of becoming top 10 has been achieved. Questions need to be asked, what steps are being taken by the "opposition" to place them above DTU? What can be changed in the near future and what is the longer term strategy to deliver top ten positions in all groups.

In order to continue with this upward climb, there is a need to consider some barriers and devise steps to overcome them, and this will be discussed in section 3 of the report.

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3. Barriers and actions to be taken

The drive to go further up the ladder is clearly there; yet the committee observed some barriers that need to be taken care of to facilitate success in the continued drive to go along this route; these barriers may be more critical with respect to achieving the next step of the "climb" than the previous one, and they are highlighted below.

3.1 Cultural change

There is a need for an additional step of cultural change. In some of the groups we felt that there is lip service only to the vision of enhancing research, but the commitment has not been internalized.

Such a change will not occur unless DTU articulates the necessary supporting strategy and policies and develops mechanisms consisting of incentives and support actions. Some suggestions are outlined below:

• Pro-active steps by the DTU and Department managements to set policies, support mechanism, incentives and feedback mechanism of reporting and follow up, all of which should encourage the necessary changes and send unambiguous message to faculty members.

• It is essential that promotion policies reflect the research profile of a candidate.

• In order to recognize outstanding academic performance in research, opportunities should be available to make exceptional promotions to a full professorship (ad personam).

• There is a need to provide, at the DTU level, a support function for identifying research funding sources and preparation of proposals. It is quite common, in leading research universities, to have a central office with experts, who can provide such support and guide the faculty members.

• There is a need to consider developing support mechanisms and funding at the Department level to encourage and facilitate submission of proposals to competitive sources (e.g. buy out staff teaching time).

• There is a need to develop mentoring mechanism within each section to take care of new and young faculty members.

• Clear cut PhD recruitment policies, to attract candidates and be more explicit on the employment conditions and future career, in order to be able to compete with the industry for the best students (see more in 3.4).

• Top research universities create opportunities for staff to handover their teaching for 6 months to 1 year after every 6 years (to go on sabbatical leave). This is an exciting opportunity for staff to engage in dialogue with leading researchers in their chosen field and to open up new areas of research, concentrate on writing papers and prepare innovative research proposals. This should be implemented more consistently and staff actively encouraged to benefit from this opportunity.

• It is important to monitor the attitude and climate at the whole university in order to see if policies and culture are adopted, understood and followed. One tool to obtain truthful answers from the faculty members is to make annual short surveys and ask key questions, anonymously. By doing this regularly, the trends and development can be followed and used by the management in order to understand its own organisation better and to be able to steer it in the desired direction.

• There seems to be general lack of transparency of financial allocation models at the university level, which does not encourage clear and effective decision making in the sections.

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3.2 Management

The Department’s management sets the policies and the general frame of the operation, distributes the resources to the various sections, and allows autonomous management of each of the sections.

This is a preferred and more efficient mode of operation of an organisation, but for it to be successful; leadership qualities are required within the sections.

The committee observed that not all the section heads can meet this expectation, since some of them are "locked" into the teaching-oriented culture, and it is difficult for them to make the change. This is reflected in the differences between the sections with respect to their research orientation and level of research. As long as this state of affairs exists, there is perhaps a need to resort to a mode where some sections have less autonomy, and this is related to issues of managing the teaching load within each section, direct contact with the newer and younger faculty members, etc.

3.3 Research Funding

It seems that the prevailing view is that special effort should be made with regards to funding from the Danish construction industry. It is expected that such an effort should be done on an individual construction company level, as well as on a national level, to change the culture of the industry to become more forthcoming in supporting research.

Creating a strong base for research support from the local industry is highly beneficial and important to any research oriented university, both with regards to the funding itself and creation of a strong public support for the university. Yet, having this strategy as the main thrust, may not be

"cost/effective" for several reasons:

(i) Changing the mind set of the local industry to create a culture favorable for research funding is a formidable task, which requires considerable effort and may take quite a long time before positive changes are made.

(ii) There are more "friendly" resources for research funding, such as the EU framework programme, whereby the effort that is required is more in line with the abilities of good researchers, namely developing proposals and proper networking. This could be more readily achieved by direct efforts of individual faculty members, who will be encouraged to do so and get institutional support as outlined in 3.1.

(iii) The process itself, of getting the funding from competitive resources such as the EU, will provide additional benefits of enhancing the international exposure of the faculty members, and this is consistent with the goal of elevating the research level to "low international" and higher.

3.4 PhD students

There is a need for developing strategies, policies and tools for recruiting more and talented PhD students. The bottleneck here is not necessarily availability of funding but rather accessibility to good candidates. There is a need to consider much more aggressive action on the international scene, seeking students outside Europe as well as within.

It should be noted that at a ranking of "low international", the expected number of PhD students per senior faculty member should be 2 to 3, while at the higher ranking of "high international", it should be elevated to 4 to 6 per faculty member.

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The committee was impressed with the supportive environment and conditions available to PhD students and this is a positive indication for the potential for the Department to recruit more effectively in the future.

3.5 Research-Teaching balance

To turn towards becoming a research oriented Department requires changing the balance between teaching and research activities, and also the mind set towards teaching. Unless such changes are considered and steps are implemented, it will be difficult to continue with the "climb" in respect of research quality level. Therefore the committee is addressing the teaching issue, from the point of view of "research-teaching" balance.

The committee has heard consistently that the teaching load is too high and is a bottle neck to make resources (time of faculty members and other resources) available for enhancing the level and intensity of the research activities. The Department head quantified this issue in terms of resources, 56% being spent on teaching, which is much higher than the university average of about 40%.

At many of the sections, this was echoed by individual faculty members, some of whom pointed out the complications relating to offering two level courses, one of which is allows students to start two times per year, so in effect staff were having to teach on three parallel and completely separate courses. This is completely incomprehensible to anyone from a leading research university.

In some sections where there was greater critical mass, the frontal teaching requirement did not seem to be phenomenally high, the attitude of the faculty members was more to provide personal attention to the individual students and attend to all of their requests. This in itself is very positive, and even admirable, and reflects perhaps the culture of a teaching oriented Department that has developed over the years.

In order to tilt the balance between research and teaching, the Department is encouraged to:

(i) Look again into the undergraduate teaching curriculum, which is made up of several degree programs that are not much different and could be consolidated.

(ii) Make a change in the practices of staff-student interactions in a way that will not compromise the commitment to students, but will make more time available for research; to make this change there is a need to apply some of the routines common in research oriented universities.

The latter step is perhaps not only a matter of change of practice but involves also a mind set change, or a cultural change, and it may have to be driven from the management level of the Department or the Sections.

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4. Re-organizational steps

The committee was made aware of discussions and perhaps some resolutions regarding organizational steps which are being considered. There are steps which may have unfavorable consequences to the CE Department, while others, which are not considered, may lead to loss of opportunities. The committee suggests that the DTU and Department management groups revisit some of the plans for the following reorganizations issues:

• Relocation of the construction management group to the newly formed Engineering Management Department.

• Prospects exist for the Centre for Arctic Technology to become a more internationally oriented interdisciplinary research entity. Exciting opportunities are emerging due to special needs, potential and risks of the arctic regions and this deserves a greater degree of institutional support and attention.

• Merging again the hydraulics and environmental engineering groups into civil engineering.

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5. Evaluation of Sections

According to the DTU-guidelines for research evaluation, the research at the department or sub- departmental group must be characterized by the panel according to the following marks to sum up the overall quality of the research:

• High international quality: Work that is at the forefront internationally, and which most likely will have an important and substantial impact in the field. The institute is considered an international leader.

• Low international quality: Work that is internationally competitive and is expected to make a significant contribution; nationally speaking at the forefront in the field. The institute is considered an international player and a national leader.

• High national quality: Work that is competitive at the national level and will probably make a valuable contribution in the international field. The institute is considered internationally visible and a national player.

• Low national quality: Work that is solid but not exciting, will add to our understanding and is in principle worthy of support. It is considered of less priority than work in the above categories. The institute is nationally visible.

The panel has judged the department and the sub-departmental groups on the basis of the following assessments aspects:

• Research programme

• Quality

• Productivity

• Relevance

• Prospects (vitality and feasibility)

It should be mentioned that the evaluation of the productivity and the competences of the staff, are partly based on lists prepared and delivered to the panel during the visit. It was stated by senior members of the Department (DTU) that the lists, being prepared reactively by individual staff members in a very short time, may contain some inconsistent information about the funding obtained by them. This may have caused the panel to have drawn some faulty or inaccurate conclusions.

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5.1 Section for Construction Materials

Research Programme

The research programme of the construction materials section is a very viable one with a proper balance between breadth and focus. There is a clear sense of a mission in the section, which is the result of the leadership quality as well as the commitment and enthusiasm of the members of the section. Collaboration within the section and outside of it is clearly evident, resulting not only in cooperative projects but also in quite impressive networking, which is a strong basis for the continuation and development of the research activities of the group. The committee was impressed with the efforts to upgrade the research infrastructure and the success in raising resources for state of the art instrumentation.

Quality

The quality of the research output of the group is quite impressive. Publications appear in the best journals in the field, and the work of the group is also presented at leading conferences. The international visibility is thus very high with many members of the group taking international leadership roles in a range of capacities. The research funding is quite high, with a good mix of resources, competitive and industrial, reflecting on the strength of the group in fundamental and applied research and the ability to bridge across the two categories.

Productivity

The level of research funding is quite high, and the number of papers in ISI journals meets the expectation of a first rate group in a research oriented university. Almost all of the group members have a reasonable balance between journal and conference publications.

The number of PhD students is reasonable, but there is a need to increase it to match the international standing of the group. This need is quite clear to the section leader and the group members, and is reflected in a variety of steps taken by the section. Most commendable is the initiative for PhD workshops in Denmark as well as in other countries. The recent plan to have a PhD workshop in China reflects a healthy strategy.

The committee would like to commend the two female researchers in the group, who have demonstrated considerable vitality and excellent publication records.

Relevance

The topics of research are always dealing with issues that are relevant to practice, with respect to the need for problem solving as well as development of new technologies. There is a proper balance between fundamental and applied research, which is a good basis to ensure the support for innovation in construction materials. The activities of the section members in various technical and international organizations, as well as the superb publication record, guarantees effective dissemination of the research results.

Prospects

The vitality of the group, the leadership quality, the future vision and record in recent years ensure the development of the section and the strengthening of its position as an international leader.

Ranking

High international quality.

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5.2 Section for Geotechnics

Research programme & Prospects

This group is rather small and has a relatively new leader, who was appointed from industry.

Progress is encouraging but is hampered severely by the need to teach on 3 different Bachelor courses per annum, since students taking the more ‘practically’ focused course are permitted to start at two different times in the year.

There are too few academic staff members in this section to be able to achieve a critical mass of research on top of this essential teaching, especially since one staff member is already 65 and is planning to retire shortly. The loss of his extensive expertise in laboratory characterization and contribution to ARTEK will be significant.

The mixture between geotechnical and geological engineering and geophysics is an attractive one but exposes the group somewhat in the delivery of the teaching requirements. The proposed hire in road geotechnics would provide core geotechnical competence in an area that is promising for 3rd party funding and would stretch across to supporting the exciting opportunities for non-metalled roads within the ARTEK Centre as well.

Focus should be placed on characterization in soils, modelling (material, physical) and geotechnical design (civil engineering background) in making new hires to complement existing faculty

members. Opportunities exist to attract young international talent in all of these areas.

Consequently, this small group is focusing research sensibly on areas of strength. It could still be more ambitious in looking at the bigger ‘geotechnology’ picture in the long term and in seeking to recruit world class talent to join their existing academic staff to enhance their future prospects.

Capitalizing on opportunities in research in soil-structure-interaction is logical, given the ongoing Danish commitment to major infrastructure projects. Even more innovative wind turbine foundation systems should be investigated, as well as optimizing the types of foundations used today.

It is surprising that natural partners within hydraulic engineering groups do not appear to be located within the same department, as in most other leading European institutions. Innovative synergies can not exploited through lack of time: e.g. geotechnics-structures, geotechnics-water, granular material response – with cementation, with two-four phases, linking into temperature and chemical effects (and cross linked into the environmental geotechnics). Thermal piles would present an excellent fit with the low energy housing projects.

A geotechnical beam centrifuge is available for research, and has been sadly underused almost since it was constructed in the 1970s. It remains an excellent opportunity for research into problems that present at scales too large for full scale field testing.

It is essential to maintain and enhance laboratories for determination of soil response under relevant static and dynamic testing load paths. Laboratory resources seem to be more than acceptable

following upgrade in the element testing and physical modelling apparatus. This would benefit from more advanced sensor technology (benders, local strain, acoustic, tomographic: combining

geophysical, geotechnical and biomedical methods) and greater technician support in geotechnical and electronic areas. These days, the most important person in many geotechnical laboratories is the

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electronics technician! The group could consider adding dynamic testing capability such as a Hollow Cylinder Apparatus or Resonant Column Apparatus to support investigations into cyclic and time dependent soil/weak rock response.

The research into wind turbine foundations was funded by the National Research Funding Council with other opportunities for the future infrastructure projects to be supported by industry. An imaginative combination of physical, numerical and material modelling exists for submission to national and industrial partners as well as EU programmes. Newly appointed faculty members should be encouraged to prepare and submit targeted research proposals to these high level funding sources.

Denmark’s academic reputation in geotechnics goes back to the two famous Professors of geotechnical engineering from DIAB/DGI, Profs. Brinch Hansen & Krebs Ovesen, who were concerned with application of theory in practice and aspects of geotechnical design at a European level (partial factor approaches). Both were international figures although publishing in today’s

‘ISI’ journals appears to have been unimportant over the last two decades. Generational change has led to the retirement or resignation of further key senior figures over the last ±5 years. This leaves an opportunity to recruit top young faculty members from overseas. Current staff members are well known nationally and include well known contributors to the international permafrost science and engineering community.

Foundations are essential in all forms. Contributing towards innovative renewable energy systems is extremely relevant to society, as is promoting mobility through enhancing transportation

infrastructure through optimizing geotechnical aspects of creating underground space and bridging expanses of water. The prospects for this group are extremely positive. There is no shortage of relevant and exciting research themes in geotechnical engineering. This could, and should, be exploited.

Quality, Productivity & Relevance

The number of PhD dissertations completed is far too low. This section should concentrate on building up to delivering 0.5-1 PhD per faculty member per year. It would be advantageous to make dissertations available on the internet.

The number of scientific publications is also too low in number and mainly focused on conference publications. Top researchers in top 10 European Universities will be producing at least 2-4 good ISI publications per annum as well as a similar number of reviewed conference contributions. This reflects the higher number of PhD students to be recruited in this section. Faculty members should plan sustained publication in scientific (preferably ISI) journals although a step up could be achieved via specialist non-ISI journals in the meantime.

Many technical reports are written by the staff. These are most likely to be an extremely useful contribution to geotechnical practice. Geotechnics naturally focuses on natural materials within the geological successions. Consequently, soil testing and specific investigations imply that more local knowledge will be developed although this may be transferable to other areas, especially if they extend onto models and design methods. System knowledge, such as for design of optimized offshore wind turbine foundations will make a significant contribution.

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Ranking

High national quality, with undoubted potential for elevating this following implementation of the key measures proposed in this report.

ARTEK

Greenland is an outstanding natural laboratory that provides an incredible opportunity for multidisciplinary arctic science and engineering projects to be carried out over the next decade.

Particularly now that ‘global climate change’ has become a matter of world concern, monitoring and modelling the degradation of permafrost in complementary manners offers a one off chance to benefit at all levels from international collaborations. In particular, doctoral schools and joint research projects should be carried out.

Scientific leadership of this centre has been accompanied by many examples of successful applications for funding from the Greenland Government, which have also been converted into a significant complement of ISI journal publications, often on environmental arctic geotechnics and remediation technology. A joint project has recently been funded by the US National Science Foundation, which should be repeated with other key international funding agencies. Since two key academics will be approaching retirement within 5 years, it is essential that the future of the Centre is assured and a new generation appointed to carry on the research.

Opportunities exist for geotechnical investigations into sustainable road pavement engineering, element testing on natural permafrost samples under warming conditions, as well as more multidisciplinary research between the permafrost science and engineering communities and researchers in Arctic infrastructure.

A potential barrier exists in the continuity of postdoctoral researchers working in the excellent specialist geo-chemical laboratory facilities both in Greenland and in Copenhagen. It seems to be counterproductive to have excellent PhD students progressing into more senior roles for them to be limited to such a short period of time (2 years). Institutional memory in such a complex area needs to be held not only at technician but also at a higher scientific level.

Ranking

Low international quality. This could easily be converted into high international quality by creating greater critical mass and including a greater range of faculty members interacting with the Centre. It would be an obvious way of capitalising on international research collaboration opportunities.

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5.3 Section for Building Physics and Services

Research programme

The section consists of 6 faculty members, 7 research staff and 9 PhD students (3 of these externally funded).

The research at the section is divided into four topics:

• Hygrothermal Building Physics (2,5 persons)

• Building Energy Engineering (5 persons)

• Technical Building Services (6 persons)

• Solar Heating (5 persons,)

The research programme focuses on indoor air quality, moisture safety, durability, energy

efficiency of building envelope, HVAC-equipment and solar heating (renewables) components and systems. The programme embraces maintenance, renovation and life cycle cost.

The four groups, one per topic, demonstrate clearly their relevance to society and its present and future needs.

Strategies for the area to develop are well demonstrated and they include focusing on: HAM (Heat Air and Moisture) - whole building modeling, integrated design of buildings with respect to energy use and indoor environment, low energy buildings using new technology, intelligent demand controlled building services, passive ventilation systems, new heat recovery technology,

construction integrated building services, cost efficient solar heating systems, solar collector and heat storage systems.

Heat- and mass transfer analyses and development of calculation tools are essentials in the presented plans of the section. This, hand in hand with experimental validation using the experimental facilities, demonstrates very good opportunities for the research at the section.

The experimental facilities seem to be good and diverse, i.e. covering many types of adequate research needs.

The groups have an international profile, ambitions and good reputation. The section has both international faculty members and PhD students. The members of the section have several

international collaborations and networks. The section arranges and takes parts in international PhD courses.

The section has a clear drive to develop and investigate innovative ideas in their field.

The whole section has attracted substantial amount of external funding the last 5 years: 52 MDkr.

The solar heating group has been the most successful group followed by the Energy&Service and Hygrothermal groups.

Quality, Publications and Productivity

The section delivers original, innovative, technical solutions and modeling approaches. Interesting new ideas are investigated e.g. concerning window technology, heat exchanger, solar heat storages.

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The findings by the research groups are of great importance and an inspiration for the society.

The number of active PhD students at the moment:

Hygrothermal Building Physics: 2

Building Energy Engineering+ Technical Building Services 5

Solar Heating 2

The responsibility of being the head PhD-supervisor is unequally divided among the faculty members. This means that there is, on an average, only one PhD per faculty member. However, it seems that the supervision is unequally distributed and only 4 faculty members are main

supervisors, i.e. 2,25 PhD per supervisor among the more active ones.

The section’s research groups have a good production of papers, comparable with the international standard. However, The overall WoS-list of publication supplied (5 years) in the self evaluation shows an average of 0,6 publications per year and faculty member, which is quite low in relation to the very high standard DTU wants to target. When the result is divided into research groups, the number for the solar group is definitely higher (between 0,8-1,33).

From the supplied list of reviewed journal and conference articles, the total number of articles reaches 210 (66 journal articles and 144 conference articles). The publications per year and faculty member would then reach 4,7 as an average in the section.

Relevance

The research within the section deals with very important aspects related to sustainability and energy and resource efficiencies.

There is a clear vision that the research should satisfy relevant needs of the industry.

The research group disseminates their findings extensively through various channels.

Prospects

The challenge of upgrading the existing building stock with new retrofitting techniques and erecting new low-energy buildings, damage free, using substantially more solar energy, impose a promising future for the groups. The huge demand of diminishing the energy and other resources for the built environment implies a promising future and interest for this area by young students and society.

However, the recruitment of PhD-students seems to be a bottleneck for the growth of the groups, although funding does not seem to be the problem.

Overall grading

Top national and average internationally (2-3 in a 1-4 scale). However, there are produced cutting edge research and very competitive results on the individual level at the section.

Recommendations

To meet the vision of DTU, the section must recruit and examine many more PhD’s.

All groups should try to focus on publishing in ISI journals; this will result in an even better evaluation in the future.

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Explore new strategies to attract more PhD-students.

Help the new PhD-students in their career planning; give them sufficient information about possibilities and demands.

Reconsider the “fixation” on the interest from industry! Does it pay off? (Is it the best way to match the goal of being among the 10 top leading universities in Europe).

Find strategies, policies and rules for how to handle the teaching and administration so researchers do not “drown” in this.

Consider to enhance the exploitation of synergy effects between the groups within the section. Find strategies, write applications and communicate even more than today with each other. Can anyone of the research group leaders take the lead for the whole section and the interests of the whole section (present head will soon retire)?

The possibility to merge with the Indoor climate centre should be exploited.

Cross-disciplinary projects with the Structural Engineering group should be considered (retrofitting, integration of building services/ducts etc, thermal bridges, heat storages, etc.).

Possibly, also try to extend collaboration with the Construction Materials group.

Consider increasing cross-disciplinary projects with the Arctic group. Exploit the possibility of attractive field work in Greenland for the recruitment of PhD students.

Can there be a building process oriented project to start with the Planning and Management Building Process group dealing with planning and quality assurance of building performances (air tightness, moisture safety etc.).

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5.4 Section for Structural Engineering

Research Programme

The leadership of the section is internationally recognized and very active in specific research fields, related to fracture mechanics and fiber-reinforced cementitious materials.

The mission and objectives of the section are rather clear and well-balanced between the three research topics: (1) Integrated Material & Structure Modeling; (2) Structural Performance; (3) Innovative Criteria & Solutions for Structural Design in Civil Engineering. The already existing connections and synergies between the topics should be further strengthened in the future.

About the strategy and policy of the section, it appears not completely developed yet. On the other hand, less attention towards local Industry and practical problems as well as more interest towards international networking and research issues are suggested.

The financial resources appear to be adequate for the considered purposes and intentions, so that the funding policy may be ranked good.

The experimental and numerical facilities are ranked very good, although a project of excellence at the national and international scale is going to be proposed and, if successful, would pose the section activities at a superior level.

The academic reputation of the section may be judged globally to be good, with some peaks of excellence.

The relevance to society of the work developed by the section is good, even if it could be improved also with a series of actions that are described in the general part of the present report.

The balance between strengths and weaknesses appears to be in favour of strengths. Among the strengths, the average age of section components emerges as the most remarkable.

Quality

Ideas and approaches in the research activity of the section appear to be rather original in some cases, and, in any case, sufficiently careful to the international state-of-art and trends.

The significance of the contribution to the field is good and can be considered to cover a wide spectrum of topics within structural engineering.

The publication strategy is not completely clear yet. The ratio of ISI publications to other

contributions is still too low, the latter consisting of local and/or technical communications as well as in conference proceedings papers. As a possible target, a 1/1 ratio is indicated.

The scientific impact of the section is to improve in the next few years, mainly submitting a higher number of papers to ISI international journals of a higher Impact Factor.

Productivity

The number of PhD dissertations should be improved in the future, in order to sustain more aggressive scientific action.

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The total number of scientific publications is presently rather high, although the ratio of ISI publications to other contributions needs be changed.

The number of purely technical or professional publications appears to be more than acceptable. In the future, this number could be even sacrificed towards achieving a more intensive international activity.

The distribution of the publications, and in particular the impact publications, is rather irregular, reflecting different ages and/or inclinations of the various section faculty members. In the next few years, a natural selection should be favoured by the department management and the section leadership through explicit career incentives.

Relevance

The advancement of knowledge is realised through the action of only some members of the section.

The others are more professionally oriented and should change their approach to help in the section growth.

The dissemination of knowledge, as already asserted, should increase in the next few years, at least at the international level.

The implementation of knowledge is good in the cases where technical solutions are proposed (for example, design of fiber-reinforced elements or facetted glass shells).

Prospects

Based on the past scientific performance, the prospects of the programme are good.

Based on the plans and ideas for the future, they look also good

Based on the age distribution of the staff, they may be considered very good.

Ranking

Low international currently, with clear potential to improve to high international.

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5.5 Section for Planning and Management of Building Processes

Research programme

An interestingly diverse group whose structure is designed to reflect the life cycle of a typical building. The section comprises five discrete research topics: (i) urban management, (ii) design management, (iii) construction management, (iv) facilities management and (v) fire safety engineering. There is a clear rationale for the bundling of these topics into a section dealing with

‘management’ issues, although the inclusion of fire safety engineering is less easy to justify. The claim that fire safety engineering is included in the section because of it being a strongly prioritized parameter in the design process is less than convincing. Nevertheless, the research topics all

resonate strongly with the international construction research agenda and each has the potential to attract considerable interest from industry. The cross-cutting themes of integration, innovation, ICT and sustainability are also highly relevant and provide an excellent framework within which to develop an international research profile.

The list of targeted journals is sensible in a field where there are as yet relatively few ISI journals.

However, the danger in breaking the section down into five separate (albeit inter-linked) topics means that none of them possess critical mass. Despite claims vis-à-vis multi-disciplinarily there is little obvious evidence that the section operates as a coherent whole. Pending departmental re- organization has created significant uncertainty within the group which, despite significant potential, seems at present to lack any real sense of direction or energy. The section as a whole appears to be awaiting its destiny rather than adopting a pro-active orientation. Given the pending departmental re-organization this to a degree is understandable. The impression gained is that the section is suffering from a lack of effective leadership and poor morale1. However, this should not necessarily be taken to imply any criticism of the present Section Head who impressed the panel with his honesty and openness. The evaluation panel is also conscious that effective leadership within a research context does not depend only upon the appointed leader, but also dependent upon a collective spirit of co-operation. Others are better placed to diagnose the real cause of the

section’s problems. The situation is not helped by the recent departure of two of the section’s best- known academics, although their departure would seem to be unconnected with the pending departmental re-organization.

Quality

The section has enjoyed some significant successes in recent years and the stated goals for each theme are well-informed and realistic. It further enjoys good international connectivity and excellent links to Danish industry and government departments/agencies. Nevertheless, concerted efforts are necessary to create a more vibrant research culture. The current dominant research quality within the group is probably little better than ‘high national’ and as such it needs to be improved. Staff members have clearly given considerable thought to what needs to be done to improve their standing, but have seemingly suffered from a lack of institutional support in their efforts to improve research quality. Furthermore, given the current state of uncertainty, there seems to be an absence of the necessary drive to implement the required improvements. The CVs of present faculty members contain much that is desirable and demonstrate a sustained commitment to high-quality teaching and international networking. All faculty members can take pride in their

1 It should be noted that the views expressed are based on a limited amount of interaction with the research group.

Furthermore, it has subsequently been suggested that morale within the group is much higher than was apparent at the time. The Panel however can only report the impressions gained during the visit, which were shared by the four members present.

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many and varied achievements; however, within the management themes, few could claim to be leading international experts in their respective fields. Nevertheless, the facilities management topic has secured the establishment of the Realdania-financed research centre in FM. This is a major coup that deserves institutional support. Given appropriate management and carefully selected recruitment the FM area could well develop into a significant international research centre. Other interesting initiatives include the proposed BIM laboratory, although it is unclear where the leadership for this idea currently resides.

Productivity

The section is only achieving modest levels of productivity in the production of research outputs, although it has enjoyed significant success in securing external funding. There is a stated intention to increase the number of journal publications and this should be supported and actively

incentivised. At present too many staff members seem to prioritize conference papers over journal articles. Members of the section feel heavily constrained by their teaching commitments which they take extremely seriously. This is of course highly commendable, but the adoption of a more

carefully managed system of student support would probably serve the long-term interests of the student body much better. Good students need exposure to faculty who are at the leading edge of international research. At present, staff diaries are seemingly driven by short-term student demands to an extent that is incompatible with espoused aspirations of research excellence. A greater degree of institutional support is necessary if a strong research culture is to be incubated. This will not be achieved easily in the short term, but there is potential for improvement. Possible measures include a more-formalized mentoring system and the development of a scheme which allows faculty members to buy themselves out of their teaching. The latter would enable them to concentrate solely on research and publications for specified periods of up to six months.

Relevance

The high relevance of the specified research themes to industry and society at large should be feeding research quality to a greater extent than is currently evident. There seems to be a mind-set that too easily trades off industrial relevance against research quality. This ultimately runs the risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Actions should be taken to learn from leading international construction management research centres to understand better how the ‘double hurdle’ of industrial relevance and research quality can be more creatively addressed.

Prospects

In terms of long-term prospects, there seems to be considerable uncertainly hanging over the future of the research group. At present, faculty members do not seem totally sure which parts of their group will be moving to a new department and which will remain in BYG. The pending re- organization would certainly seem to present a suitable opportunity to provide Fire Safety Engineering with a more appropriate home where it would be more likely to thrive and develop.

There is also a risk that the departmental re-organization may weaken the links between the

management research themes and technology-orientated research at DTU. Positive steps need to be taken to ensure that this does not happen. But a broader concern is that the group may lose its identity and raison d’être once removed from the institutional structures of construction research.

The proposed FM research centre holds significant promise for the future and therefore must be supported and nurtured.

Overall grading

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There is much to be admired and celebrated within the track record of the Section for Planning and Management of Building Processes, and there are undoubtedly areas that tend towards international competitiveness. However, on the basis of the published outputs it is difficult to rate the average at any higher than ‘high national quality’. Having said that, there are faculty members who have the potential to perform at a higher level.

Recommendations

The key recommendation is that the institutional uncertainty surrounding this group should be ended as soon as possible. For whatever reason, members of the Section seem to feel disengaged from the rationale for the proposed Engineering Management Department. The tack record and broader reputation of DTU in the area of planning and management of building means that there is much that can be built upon. Particular efforts need to be made to fill the vacant professorship with a leading international candidate.

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Appendix

List of printed material made available for the panel prior to the site visit:

• BYG-DTU, Self evaluation report 2007

• Strategy, Department of civil Engineering, March 2003

• BYG-DTU, Annual reports 2004, 2005 and 2006

• BYG-DTU, Udviklingsmål og virkemidler 2008 -2011 (in Danish)

On request, the following was prepared and handed out to the panel during the site visit.

• Lists with permanent staff details comprising: age, date of employment, Journal and conference papers since 2001), Number and size of research grants since 2001, and number of supervised PhD’s (Note: Due to database shortage only information about activities while employed at DTU were included)

Cv’s of Permanent staff members

Referencer

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