Samuel Laryea
School of Construction Management & Engineering, University of Reading, P.O. Box 219, Reading, RG6 6AW, UK. s.laryea@reading.ac.uk
Roine Leiringer
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, SE-41296 Sweden. Roine.leiringer@chalmers.se
The countries in West Africa (WA) are pushing for socio-economic development. The construction sector has an important part to play in helping to realise these aspirations. This necessitates an increased emphasis on research in the built environment, as a key contributor to developing capacity, knowledge and technologies for the sector. The West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) conference was initiated in 2008. The objective was to provide a vehicle for the development of built environment research in WA through giving young researchers and early-career scholars an outlet for their research work; and to supply a platform for networking and collaboration among more senior academics. Two conferences have so far been organised, in 2009 and 2010, bringing together 180 academics, researchers and practitioners from the WA region. This paper draws on content analysis of the 102 papers that were presented at these two conferences and the 100 papers that will be presented at the 2011 conference. These 200+ research papers provide a window into current research priorities and trends and, thus, offer an opportunity to understand the kinds of research work undertaken by built environment researchers in West Africa. The aim is to illuminate the main research themes and methods that are currently pursued and the limitations thereof. The findings lay bare some of the many challenges that are faced by academics in WA and provide suggestions for alternative directions for future research and development work.
Keywords: built environment, research, WABER, West Africa
About Me
- Samuel Laryea
- Johannesburg, Guateng, South Africa
- I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Construction Economics and Management at University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. In the past, I have been a Lecturer in the School of Construction Management and Engineering at the University of Reading, UK (2010-12); and also a Post-Doctoral Academic Fellow (2009) and Graduate Teaching Assistant (2008). I completed my PhD at University of Reading in Dec 2008 on the relationship between risk and price in tendering. Prior to transferring to Reading in Jan 2008, I was an MPhil/PhD student at KNUST, Ghana (2004-07). I gained my undergraduate degree in Building Technology from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana in 1998-2002. During school days, my peers elected me to serve in several leadership positions including SRC President at KNUST. From 1994-96, I attended Suhum Sec. Tech. School after basic education at schools in Ghana and Nigeria. I did my National Service with the Fanteakwa District Assembly in 2002-03. After that, I worked at the Development Office of KNUST until I started my PhD in 2004. I am a co-organiser for the WABER Conference and an author of 30+ research publications.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment