International Directory of Building Research Organizations: Fid-Bau Portal

International Directory of Building Research Organizations

In this often fractious world, all nations share the needs for buildings and facilities of physical infrastructure to shelter and productively support the activities of their people. Everyone strives to improve the quality of their lives, and so these needs persist, regardless of levels of national income, political philosophy, and social structure. Building research, the directed effort to discover new and better ways to meet these needs for buildings and physical infrastructure, thus offers benefits to all and occurs in many nations around the world. The Building Research Board (BRB) has produced the directory to help spread the knowledge. While the context is global, one must acknowledge a parochial interest as well: Building research and technological innovation in the United States are lagging. They are lagging in comparison with the great strides being made in such fields as electronics and bio-technology that may have application in building. They are lagging in terms of research spending, compared with the importance of construction in the U.S. economy and compared with other nations. The lagging research effort threatens the productivity and competitiveness of the construction industry in an increasingly global marketplace.