Refurbishment of higher education premises: Stakeholder engagement in the process and product

In spite of various initiatives, much of the UK university building stock is ageing and in need of modernisation both in terms of environmental performance and to respond to the changing landscape of pedagogy and andragogy. Higher educational establishments like to portray themselves as pioneers of a green campaign however decision processes may not always be as easy and straightforward as they seem. Contributing factors will include the complexity of the client brief, the difficulties of timetabling, the desire to operate democratic processes in decision-making and the inevitable compromises resulting from these often conflicting demands. Most universities will have restrictions on the budget, time and working schedules compounded by the need to carry out the construction work on sites where the normal academic activities are to continue. Many university clients will involve the end users in the process of decision-making causing an information overflow whilst some others choose not to get their employees (as the end users) involved at all. This research uses a surgery approach to an ongoing major refurbishment project to map the perceived success of the processes and construction product. The results are aimed to enable similar future projects to run with a greater perceived success, which will in turn benefit all the stakeholders.