It’s a unique opportunity and honour, for both nominees and the eventual winners, with finalists evaluated by an expert panel of judges on the basis of outstanding achievement and contribution within the field.

All of this has given industry a new, unified voice in government; an important step for a sector which hasn’t necessarily been widely listened to in the past..This type of unification has clearly demonstrated the benefits industry engagement provides, showcasing to the government how the construction sector can support recovery.

In addition, industry players themselves have seen the benefit of coming together, not just in terms of a recovery from the immediate downturn, but also through an understanding of how transforming construction into a more productive and sustainable sector in the future can be supported and accelerated.We’re no longer talking about simply needing more people on site to build things more cheaply.The focus now is about how we construct our assets and how we operate.. We have important questions to answer: how do we drive greater levels of manufacturing (DfMA) and more productive growth into the sector?

How do we use data in a way that supports not just better construction projects, but also better operational assets?How do we drive that path to net-zero carbon emissions with greater impact on social value?

These things are crucial to strategic policy, both in terms of the new assets that we build, and how we operate the existing ones.

As an industry, we have a moral obligation to do better.At GSK, I found myself working on a pharmaceutical project in Parma.

The goal was to manufacture a drug called an attachment inhibitor to benefit people with HIV and AIDS, for whom other treatments are no longer working.The drug was in development and GSK wanted to get the product to market as quickly as possible..

When trying to accelerate a product to market, it’s important not to tie things down too early.Unexpected things often happen in development, which affect the outcome.