RIBA Mission

Context:

The RIBA was founded in 1834.  Its charter binds the Institute to: ‘The advancement of architecture and the promotion of the acquirement of the knowledge of the various arts and sciences connected therewith.’

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The RIBA is the UK body for architecture and the architectural profession. It employs 170 executive staff in its London and regional offices, providing support to more than 40,000 members worldwide in the form of training, technical services, publications and events, and sets standards for the education of architects, both in the UK and overseas. 

The RIBA Research & Development Department plays a key role in fulfilling the RIBA’s mission to be a knowledge based organisation.  According to its website, the R&D Department aims to act as a matchmaker between:

• those with a research capability, such as practices, schools of architecture, other academic institutions and research institutions
• those with a need for research, such as government, commercial organisations, professional groups, industry, practices, charities and representational groups
• those with funds for research, such as research councils and funding bodies, national government funding sources, EU and other international governmental funding sources, industry, commerce and representational groups

The other main aim of the R&D Department is to:

• publish, encourage publication and otherwise disseminate and implement the outcomes of research for both applied and academic purposes

In 2005, the RIBA commissioned a strategic study into the future of the profession: Constructive Change. [3]  A key recommendation of this report was that the Institute should ‘become the knowledge management, market intelligence and research focus for the architectural profession’. In response to this recommendation, the RIBA has recently approved a programme to transform its current operational structure from the ground up by amalgamating each of the various working groups, linked societies and client forums into a more autonomous arrangement of RIBA Knowledge Communities, each centred on a subject of special interest.  Communities will consist of a core group of up to eight experts, led by a ‘Knowledge Champion’.  This group will be supported by a wider Member Forum and a Public Forum which are linked as a distributed, virtual network.  The process and outputs of each knowledge community will be stored in a ‘Knowledge Bank’ which can be accessed by the community. 

The recommendation of Constructive Change was confirmed by a survey of RIBA members in March 2007, which advised Council of the ‘need to engage RIBA members better and to strengthen the base from which the RIBA takes policy ideas.’  In order to create effective policy, the RIBA needs a complete and detailed description of its environment and the various forces which affect this environment.   Each member holds a small piece of the entire picture - a system of networked knowledge communities would enable the RIBA to assemble the ‘big picture’, drawing together the knowledge and insights of each of its members to help inform a strategic vision for the future of the profession.

The RIBA architectural research wiki is currently trialling the use of technology for managing knowledge which can be used to support these knowledge-based initiatives and help to create the appropriate networks.  It is also possible that the lessons learned from the test wiki could be used to guide the planned upgrade and redesign of the RIBA’s electronic network of members – RIBAnet - later this year.

Therefore:
Consider how the lessons learned by the R&D test wiki can be adopted by other RIBA initiatives for managing knowledge.

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The pattern RIBA Mission needs to be translated into a set of policies, strategies and operational procedures which will be carried out with the help of the pattern Executive Support and in accordance with the normative requirements of the pattern Governance.