Two Sir Ian Dixon Scholarships Awarded

A Chartered Institute of Building [CIOB] product story

Edited by the Buildingtalk editorial team Oct 19, 2004

The 2004 Sir Ian Dixon Scholarship has been awarded to Pippa Trout of the Rok Group and Tim Smith from the Kier Group Ltd.

The 2004 Sir Ian Dixon Scholarship has been awarded to Pippa Trout of the Rok Group and Tim Smith from the Kier Group Ltd with each receiving a £2,000 bursary.

For seven years the CIOB, in conjunction with the Worshipful Company of Constructors, has run the Sir Ian Dixon scholarship with the aim to encourage new research in construction management over a 12-month study period.

Pippa who currently works for Rok as a Site Manager, will receive a scholarship for her research "Rok and Roll: Challenging the Mind-Set of Our Industry." This study will examine the diversity of information on change and the short-term pressures for results and profits.

This can often mean that change initiatives are of a low priority in the extensive list of organisational and management demands.

The results are hoped to show that by improving the ease of standard processes it will enhance the working environment and increase knowledge transfer.

Tim is employed by Kier Western (part of the Kier Group) as a Senior Engineer.

Tim's research, "Investigating the Merits of Day Release Study Compared to Full Time Graduate Qualification", will investigate the differences between the two main routes into construction: full time study at university or college and part time or day release programmes undertaken while already working for a construction firm.

It is hoped that the conclusions will enable construction firms to engineer training schemes that are best suited to individuals whether they have undertaken a full time or part time qualification, allowing young professionals to reach their potential more rapidly.

A CIOB spokesperson commented, "As always the calibre of nominations we received was extremely high, the CIOB has a particular interest in both topics of change and education in construction and we simply couldn't refuse to award two scholarships this year.".