PRACTICALITIES OF THE TRANSFER OF INFORMATION FROM RESEARCH TO PRACTICE
Dr.-Ing. Wilhelm
Wissman Director,
Fraunhofer IRB, Germany
- SUMMARY
- BUILDING RESEARCH IN GERMANY
- INFORMATION CONCERNING BUILDING RESEARCH FOR BUILDING PRACTITIONERS IN GERMANY
- DISSEMINATION METHODS FOR RESEARCH RESULTS
- Information Papers of the AGB ("Metteilungsblatt der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Bauforschung")
- Short reports from building research ("Kurzberichte aus der Bauforschung Kbf")
- Dissemination of research reports
- Series of specialized books on research reports
- MARKETING AND ADVERTISING FOR BUILDING RESEARCH
- DATABASES
- IRB-LITERATURAUSLESEN AND IRB-LITERATURAUSLESEN PLUS (IRB-BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND IRB-BIBLIOGRAPHIES PLUS)
- ARCONIS INFORMATION CONSULTING
- CONCLUDING REMARKS
In Germany, nobody is talking specifically about building research. Looking at the official statistics concerning budgets available for research, the item is not even mentioned. This is all the more regrettable - but hardly surprising - since it is well known that almost all developments take place in industries deeply involved in research, such as the chemical or micro-technological industries, which spend a high proportion of their revenues on research and development. The same remark applies to research projects financed by the state, irrespective of the country.
In Germany, there is neither a central nor a single large-scale research center for building research. Public building-related research projects are carried out in many small research institutes, universities, institutes for testing materials, planning offices and by individual researchers.
Support for building research projects is decentralized. However, coordination of research subjects which should be treated (or which are ongoing), is assured by a loose association, the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Bauforschung (AGB)" (Working Association for Building Research). More than 90 institutions which support research are represented in it. The Federal Ministry for Building provides the head office of AGB.
INFORMATION
CONCERNING BUILDING RESEARCH FOR BUILDING
PRACTITIONERS IN GERMANY
Concerning the intermediate and final results of building research, interested people can access the information in different ways. Of course, it is more convenient to talk to the researcher him/herself, but such an approach would take up all the researcher's time. Instead, research results find expression in the publications of specialized building journals and sometimes in specialized books. In addition, research reports are published, including the results and descriptions of all the research methods used.
Although allocation and treatment of building research projects are decentralized, building research information is mainly centralized. In this regard, the "Fraunhofer Informationszentrum Raum und Bau (Fraunhofer IRB)" (Fraunhofer Information Centre for Building and Planning) is playing an important role. During the last decade, IRB gained more and more competence to collect the building research reports and to make them known in various ways.
The results of building research should reach practice and be used by practitioners. However, this is not always a priority for researchers and research organizations. Yet, without information dissemination, building research is useless, except for the researchers themselves. That is why the development of an effective information structure is necessary.
Who comprise the target groups of building practitioners? Building practitioners include planners, architects and engineers, building contractors (including craft and home building companies), banks, administrative authorities, building materials industries, building product manufacturers, etc. They are looking for information and not essentially for building research results. Fraunhofer IRB has therefore to meet two demands:
- First, information on building research results has to be identified within the mass of all relevant information, such as references in journal articles and so on, and should not be put in a separate category. As already mentioned, building practitioners are not very interested in isolated references to building research results concerning their problem. The building practitioner needs a quick answer to his/her specific request, regardless whether the specific information is published in a specialized journal or in a research report.
- Second, building research results have to be made known actively, because building practitioners have to be made aware that there is something new worth knowing about. Their attention has to be positively drawn to it and their interest awakened with enough emphasis and by using different methods.
DISSEMINATION
METHODS FOR RESEARCH RESULTS
Information
Papers of the AGB ("Metteilungsblatt der
Arbeitsgemeinschaft für
Bauforschung")
The members of AGB inform their central Office about ongoing and completed research projects. The Office transmits this information to IRB which, in addition, tries to get similar information from other national and international institutions. All ongoing and completed research projects are stored in the IRB-data base BAUFO (Building Research Projects). The Metteilungsblatt der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Bauforschung is derived from this database. In the Information Papers, research projects are classified according to their state of advancement (ongoing or completed) and by using the subject classification of IRB. Each entry contains information about the subject, researcher, funding, status (ongoing or completed), working program or results (the project description), and eventually bibliographic references to publications.
The Information Papers of AGB are distributed free of charge to all interested persons by the Federal Ministry for Building and the AGB Office.
Short reports
from building research ("Kurzberichte aus der
Bauforschung Kbf")
Often researchers summarize the results of their research on about twenty typed pages; Fraunhofer IRB publishes these summaries in the specialized journal "Kurzberichte aus der Bauforschung Kbf". Among the subscribers are the editors of specialized building journals and of the information papers of professional associations; the editors use the information to prepare reports which are reprinted in an even shorter form. In this way, everyone becomes aware of new results in building research.
Dissemination of
research reports
The first type of publications regarding research are manuscripts. Many members of AGB submit their manuscripts to Fraunhofer IRB. In this way, IRB automatically gets the copyright. All reports immediately get an International Standard Book Number (ISBN). Thus the reports leave the gray area of "non published literature" and are published in the catalogues of books-in-print which are used by the book sellers as references to available literature. Today, these catalogues of books-in-print are also available on CD-ROM, and are also offered on Internet by mail-order book sellers. If one wishes to buy a specialized book, there is a chance that in looking for it, one may possibly also find several pertinent building research reports at the same time, since they also now have an ISBN.
Fraunhofer IRB treats a research report like a conventional specialized book, and does not leave it in the gray area of non-published literature.
Series of
specialized books on research
reports
Special reports containing research results for direct use in building practice are listed in the series "Bauforschung für die Praxis" (Building research for practice). The decision on the manuscripts to be published in the series is made by civil engineers and architects of Fraunhofer IRB, not by documentalists, librarians or publishers. Criteria for the decision to publish are not only based on the expert opinions of the civil engineers and architects but also on the announcement of the research report in the information bulletins of professional associations, the coverage of the report in specialized journals, and the demand for the report in paperback form. Manuscripts supported by the Federal Ministry of Building are published in the series "Bau- und Wohnforschung" (Building and housing research).
The publishing house of Fraunhofer IRB also publishes research reports for individual research institutes within the framework of series of specialized books related to those institutes. Naturally, each research institute promotes its own research reports and usually advertises them at its own seminars and meetings.
MARKETING AND
ADVERTISING FOR BUILDING RESEARCH
The publishing house of Fraunhofer IRB advertises a research report in the same way as a specialized book, e.g. by reviews in specialized journals or by mailings directed to well-defined target groups. Announcements concerning research reports are distributed with advertisements for other specialized books and are presented in a similar way. Therefore a research report is not treated differently from a specialized book; furthermore, it can be easily read because building research does not involve the specialized vocabulary of 'high tech' research.
The "Kurzberichte aus der Bauforschung" (Short reports from building research) mentioned previously is also involved in the marketing and advertising of building research. In addition, the publishing house of Fraunhofer IRB also publishes the "Newsletter Bauforschung" (Newsletter of Building Research). It briefly contains the highlights of building research results and should encourage the reader to order the complete research reports of interest. Building research is also a main subject of the journal "ARCONIS Wissen zum Planen und Bauen und zum Baumarkt" (ARCONIS Knowledge on Planning, Building and Construction Markets), published by the publishing house of Fraunhofer IRB.
There is a catalogue published annually, listing all publications concerning building research results. As the research reports belong to the program of the publishing house of Fraunhofer IRB, the catalogue contains research reports as well as the other specialized books published by the Fraunhofer IRB. The catalogue is based on a database which is available to the public. From this database, sub-catalogues for specific subjects can be prepared.
The Fraunhofer IRB uses all possible marketing strategies in order to announce research reports and to create an incentive to order these publications. Of course, research reports on special theoretical subjects can only be sold in a very small run; research results on attractive and practice-oriented subjects can reach a run between 500 and 1 000 copies. Two thousand seven hundred copies of the best seller have been sold up to now.
By the use of publishing-on-demand and modern high capacity printers, the publishing house of Fraunhofer IRB takes almost no risk in editing, because research reports are only printed on request.
The strategic marketing and advertising of the publishing house of Fraunhofer IRB needs a large budget and cannot be cost-recovered on building research alone. But how can building research be used if the results are not transferred to building practice?
As already mentioned, data on ongoing and completed research projects are stored in the "BAUFO" database. The whole BAUFO database is a segment of "RSWB" (Regional Planning, Town Planning, Housing, Building Construction), the largest world-wide bibliographic database on building and planning. Customers reaching RSWB on-line or via CD-ROM will sometimes find references to ongoing research projects or building research reports.
In addition, the bibliographic data of building research reports are translated into English and stored in the English-language database "ICONDA" (the CIB's International Construction Database). ICONDA can be used world-wide on-line and via CD-ROM.
IRB-LITERATURAUSLESEN AND IRB-LITERATURAUSLESEN PLUS (IRB-BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND IRB-BIBLIOGRAPHIES PLUS)
Customers who do not search the databases obtain the IRB-literaturauslesen and IRB-literaturauslesen plus. Literaturauslesen are bibliographies on restricted subjects derived from RSWB. An IRB-literaturauslesen can have been produced as much as four years ago whereas an IRB-literaturauslesen plus is produced on the day of order and therefore reflects the latest state of the database. IRB-literaturauslesen and IRB-literaturauslesen plus can be ordered on 2 500 subjects. The bibliographies on any of the subjects also contain references to pertinent building research reports if any are available.
ARCONIS
INFORMATION CONSULTING
"ARCONIS Information Consulting" is the service of Fraunhofer IRB which answers individual inquiries (see the paper by Elke Nürmberger), naturally including every request concerning building research. Regarding research, the range of ARCONIS' services extends from the supply of addresses of building researchers to the identification of areas where building research is lacking. References to building research reports are included in the treatment of all orders which involve searching RSWB.
Transfer of building research results into building practice can only be described by examples. In Germany, the promotion of building research results in mainly done by Fraunhofer IRB with its own publishing house, its literature reference service and ARCONIS Information Consulting (its individualized information service). In other countries, the transfer of building research results into practice is organized in a different way.
First, it seems important to offer building research reports in the same way as the conventional publications of a publishing house, and to offer them to the target groups of building practitioners together with other specialized books.
Secondly, the references to building research reports should be included in searches of literature databases and be referred to by information services like ARCONIS Information Consulting, together with other information, while answering individual inquiries.
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