A new Chair and Vice-Chair have been announced for buildingSMART UK (BSUK) the built environment group of organisations leading the charge on open BIM adoption through standards, tools and knowledge exchange. UCL’s Vice Dean of Engineering Systems (and BRE Chief Scientist and Engineer) Professor Jeremy Watson CBE and Fellow and Director of BIM at Atkins, Dr Anne Kemp, replace current incumbents Mark Bew MBE and Prof Tim Broyd, who step down this month. Nick Tune, Director of BSUK (which is managed by BRE) said ‘We are now just over a year away from the Government’s deadline on BIM Level 2 – the industry has made considerable progress but we have a way to go to meet the ‘go live’ target and we need to start progressing Level 3. Both Jeremy and Anne have the experience and energy to build on the great work done by Mark and Tim in this space – Jeremy recently led on the technical aspects of Governments BIM Level 3 strategy and Anne leads on BIM for infrastructure and the alignment of BIM and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - we are very pleased to have them on board’. buildingSMART’s mission is to get construction and related sectors using open BIM effectively to achieve greener, leaner and more efficient buildings and infrastructure in the UK. It currently leads on the development and harmonisation of international BIM standards. A key part of its work is to help new BIM users deploy open BIM practices and standards. It recently launched the BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) standard that allows users of openBIM to share data within supply chains more efficiently. It is also conducting trials on the use of BIM libraries, Employers Information Requirements (EIRs) and Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie). For further information please contact Linda McKeown, BRE, 01923 664569, email mckeownl@bre.co.uk NOTES TO EDITOR Dr Anne Kemp is an Atkins Fellow and Director of BIM at Atkins, Anne is the Chair of the Association of Geographical Information, ICE BIM Action Group and BIM4 Infrastructure UK, Anne has been active member of BuildingSMART UK for several years and has the skills required to bring the geospatial and BIM worlds together as well as supporting BuildingSMART with its Infrastructure Activities. Prof Jeremy Watson CBE is concurrently Vice-Dean and Professor of Engineering Systems in the Faculty of Engineering Sciences, working in the Department of Science Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at the University College of London (UCL) and Chief Scientist & Engineer at BRE. An engineer by training, Jeremy has experience as a practitioner and director of pure and applied research and development in industry, the public sector and academia. Until November 2012, he was Chief Scientific Advisor for the Department of Communities & Local Government (DCLG). Jeremy was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s 2013 Birthday honours, for services to engineering. Jeremy also led the technical team in the development of the BIM Level 3 plan that was developed on behalf of Government in 2014. BuildingSMART UK is part of the international BuildingSMART programme, with representation across Europe, North America, the Middle East, Far East and Australasia. Members are plugged into a network of leading experts from around the world to define, develop and maintain open standards such as the IFCs and associated protocols to enable truly interoperable data exchange. These standards are moving towards ful lSO recognition.www.buildingsmart.org.uk