Edinburgh Futures Institute
The University of Edinburgh is currently undertaking a £120million refurbishment of the former Old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on Lauriston Place to transform it into the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
With development commencing in partnership with Balfour Beatty during 2019, the Category-A Listed building will host 21,300 m² of floor space - 6000 of which will be new construction. This includes a range of spaces - housing accommodation, offices, lecture facilties and spaces for events..
A much-loved building with historic links to the community will see it's former Nightingale wards connected through it's wide corridors to provide space for informal meetings and breakout areas
Below is a video of developments:
Vice-Principal Professor Dorothy Miell, head of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, said: “The world is experiencing major changes: climate volatility, political discontent, advances in artificial intelligence, economic upheavals. This presents big challenges. We need different ways of thinking about these issues and of devising new solutions.
“Edinburgh Futures Institute will make that difference. It will blend theoretical and practical knowledge. It will work with organisations dealing directly with these challenges and curate meaningful interactions between seemingly disparate disciplines. We want our students to embody this approach and our partners to share the vision and help us to develop it.”
More information regarding the development, it's future use and the building itself can be found by visiting the Edinburgh Futures Institute website: https://efi.ed.ac.uk/
Community Benefits
Within the first 18 months of construction, around 77% of all labour on the site was sourced within a 40 mile radius.
In addition, Balfour Beatty have undertaken a number of community benefits, including:
- Hosting two placements from students at the Royal School of Military Engineering, one from Napier University and a further one from a local school
- Working with Developing the Young Workforce to support their Get Work Ready programme, giving young people an insight into pathways leading to apprenticeships and traineeships
- Delivering an employability course at HMYOI Polmont for young offenders
- Donations supporting refugees through the Syrian Futures Foundation
- Donating toileteries to local people affected by homelessness through the charity Streetworks
- Surplus IT equipment given to local charities
Kickin' On' deliver mental health workshops to site staff
In April 2021, Balfour Beatty also hosted a series of mental health workshops from the charity Kickin' On. The sessions aimed to destigmatise discussion of mental health, promoting understanding of physical and mental wellbeing.
This in turn led to a number of staff onsite in accessing the charity's services to support their own mental health.
To find out more about Balfour Beatty, visit https://www.balfourbeatty.com/
Data Driven Innovation
The Edinburgh Futures Institute is part of the Data Driven Innovation (DDI) strand of the Edinburgh & South East Scotland City Region Deal.
From food production and climate change, to exploring Space and genetically-tailored healthcare, the DDI initiative is a cluster of innovation hubs that bring academic disciplines together to delve into some of the world’s most pressing challenges – using data to innovate. To find out more, visit the DDI website (https://ddi.ac.uk/), or click the entries below to view further information about each of the hubs: