5 May 2022 | Innovation | Our Work
The draft event programme for the Local Council Roads Innovation Group’s (LCRIG) Innovation Festival has been released, with delegates set to hear from innovators and operatives who are driving forward new ideas to help deliver change in the sector.
The Innovation Festival will be a first of its kind for the highways sector – with authorities already committed to making their road networks available for trials along with funding for qualifying innovators who participate in the event.
The new event, which will take place from 6-7 July at Newark Showground, has been established to ‘make the case for innovation’ and will bring together local authorities, central government, the supply chain, associations and academia.
Exhibitors are able to request to be included as a qualifying innovator to be eligible for innovation funding and/or trials and the Infrastructure Innovation Board and delegates will judge the qualifying innovations.
Day 1 of the event will include a session entitled ‘Meet the Innovators’ which will feature LCRIG’s Infrastructure Innovation Board and some of the LCRIG Steve Berry Think Exceptional Innovation Fund winners. The panel will discuss the challenges around innovation and how these barriers can be overcome.
Delegates will participate in innovation scoring across both days of the event where they will be invited to judge entries across various categories including: Water course management; Highway Defects; Green Estate; Winter Maintenance; Transport Technology Fleet & Equipment; Health & Safety; Retroreflectivity.
On Day 2 an ‘Inspiring Innovation’ session will see the focus put on front line staff, highlighting real life examples of how they are driving innovation through their organisations. It will highlight, through real examples, how operatives can be engaged at the design stages of innovative projects and the benefits of this.
View the draft event programme here.
LCRIG Content Director Alec Peachey said: “The Innovation Festival is an industry first and represents an opportunity for likeminded professionals to come together and discover the latest innovations that the highways sector has to offer. Discussions will centre around opportunities, the benefits of innovation, the challenges of innovation and some of the resources that are available to overcome them. The Festival will play a key role in helping to make innovation become business as usual within councils, the supply chain and the wider sector. Look out for further announcements as we move closer to the event.”
Find out more and register for the event here.
Innovation in Highways
In November 2021, LCRIG published a report entitled ‘Innovation in highways’. The report highlights some interesting findings on the differing approaches between local authorities and the challenges around implementing innovation in highways.
You can access the full report here.
The LCRIG / Steve Berry ‘Think Exceptional’ Innovation fund, supported by WJ Group
Connor Specialist Paving (Tac-Grid), Community Models, Fitzpatrick Advisory (DASHA), NY Highways and Liverpool John Moores University have been selected to receive a share of the £150,000 as part of the LCRIG / Steve Berry Think Exceptional Innovation Fund, supported by WJ.
For more information on the Innovation fund, please click here.
Keep up to date on all LCRIG initiatives by subscribing to our weekly e-newsletter, the LCRIG Insight here.