UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC): PROGRAMME GRANT: Long term dynamics of interdependent infrastructure systems

英国和全球发达经济体的国家基础设施（NI）系统（能源、交通、水、废物和信息通信技术）面临着严峻的挑战。2009年英国科学技术委员会（CST）关于NI的报告确定了重大漏洞、容量限制和许多NI组件接近其使用寿命的结束。它还突显了英国基础设施供应安排的严重分化。我们迫切需要减少基础设施的碳排放，以应对未来人口、社会和生活方式的变化，并建立抵御气候变化日益加剧影响的能力。如果要有效地进行NI转型，同时将相关风险降至最低，就需要以长期、跨部门的方法为基础，了解NI在一系列可能未来的表现。必须构成这种战略方法基础的“系统的系统”分析还不存在——这个跨学科的研究项目将提供它。英国基础设施转型研究联盟的目标是开发和展示新一代系统仿真模型和工具，为NI的分析、规划和设计提供信息。这项研究将在全国范围内处理能源、运输、水、废物和信息通信技术系统，开发新的方法来分析它们的性能、风险和相互依赖性。它将提供一个虚拟环境，在这个环境中，我们将测试NI的长期投资策略，并了解备选策略在政策约束方面的表现，如供应的可靠性和安全性、成本、碳排放以及对人口和气候变化的适应性。该研究计划围绕四个主要挑战展开：1。如何在不确定的未来平衡基础设施的容量和需求？我们将开发各种方法，以兼容的方式对NI系统的能力、需求和相互依赖性进行建模，以适应各种技术、社会经济和气候的未来。因此，我们将提供必要的工具，以确定可持续平衡能力和需求的强有力战略。基础设施故障的风险是什么？我们如何调整NI以使其更具弹性？我们将通过建立NI网络模型来分析相互依赖的基础设施故障的风险，并分析故障对人们和经济的后果。关于关键漏洞和风险的信息将用于确定调整基础设施系统以减少未来风险的方法。基础设施系统如何发展并与社会和经济相互作用？从理想的模拟开始，逐步扩展到全国范围，我们将开发新的模型，以研究基础设施、社会和经济的长期发展。我们将使用模拟模型来展示基础设施供应的其他长期未来，以及如何实现这些未来。从长远来看，英国应该采取什么战略来综合提供NI ？我们将与政府和工业界的优秀项目合作伙伴合作，使用我们的新方法为英国的NI开发和测试替代战略，为向可持续性过渡建立一个以证据为基础的案例。我们将分析必要的治理安排，以确保在实践中实现这种过渡。项目资助提供了与政府和工业界的关键合作伙伴灵活合作的机会，以持续五年的方式解决具有国家重要性的研究挑战。我们的目标是，通过开发新一代工具，与我们的政府和行业合作伙伴一起，我们将使英国NI提供的战略分析发生革命，同时成为一个以新颖性，研究卓越性和影响力而获得认可的国际标志性项目。

National infrastructure (NI) systems (energy, transport, water, waste and ICT) in the UK and in advanced economies globally face serious challenges. The 2009 Council for Science and Technology (CST) report on NI in the UK identified significant vulnerabilities, capacity limitations and a number of NI components nearing the end of their useful life. It also highlighted serious fragmentation in the arrangements for infrastructure provision in the UK. There is an urgent need to reduce carbon emissions from infrastructure, to respond to future demographic, social and lifestyle changes and to build resilience to intensifying impacts of climate change. If this process of transforming NI is to take place efficiently, whilst also minimising the associated risks, it will need to be underpinned by a long-term, cross-sectoral approach to understanding NI performance under a range of possible futures. The 'systems of systems' analysis that must form the basis for such a strategic approach does not yet exist - this inter-disciplinary research programme will provide it.The aim of the UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium is to develop and demonstrate a new generation of system simulation models and tools to inform analysis, planning and design of NI. The research will deal with energy, transport, water, waste and ICT systems at a national scale, developing new methods for analysing their performance, risks and interdependencies. It will provide a virtual environment in which we will test strategies for long term investment in NI and understand how alternative strategies perform with respect to policy constraints such as reliability and security of supply, cost, carbon emissions, and adaptability to demographic and climate change.The research programme is structured around four major challenges:1. How can infrastructure capacity and demand be balanced in an uncertain future? We will develop methods for modelling capacity, demand and interdependence in NI systems in a compatible way under a wide range of technological, socio-economic and climate futures. We will thereby provide the tools needed to identify robust strategies for sustainably balancing capacity and demand.2. What are the risks of infrastructure failure and how can we adapt NI to make it more resilient?We will analyse the risks of interdependent infrastructure failure by establishing network models of NI and analysing the consequences of failure for people and the economy. Information on key vulnerabilities and risks will be used to identify ways of adapting infrastructure systems to reduce risks in future.3. How do infrastructure systems evolve and interact with society and the economy? Starting with idealised simulations and working up to the national scale, we will develop new models of how infrastructure, society and the economy evolve in the long term. We will use the simulation models to demonstrate alternative long term futures for infrastructure provision and how they might be reached.4. What should the UK's strategy be for integrated provision of NI in the long term? Working with a remarkable group of project partners in government and industry, we will use our new methods to develop and test alternative strategies for Britain's NI, building an evidence-based case for a transition to sustainability. We will analyse the governance arrangements necessary to ensure that this transition is realisable in practice.A Programme Grant provides the opportunity to work flexibly with key partners in government and industry to address research challenges of national importance in a sustained way over five years. Our ambition is that through development of a new generation of tools, in concert with our government and industry partners, we will enable a revolution in the strategic analysis of NI provision in the UK, whilst at the same time becoming an international landmark programme recognised for novelty, research excellence and impact.