Most of the civil engineering infrastructure in South Africa is owned by the national government, provincial governments and local authorities. A major challenge for these authorities is the lack of trained human recourses, particularly in the area of infrastructure maintenance. An important value of the CIMM programme is the training of high-level personnel (MSc, MEng, PhD). The establishment of the programme was based on the evidence and conviction that the engineer of the future will spend more time dealing with infrastructure management and maintenance problems than designing new infrastructure.
Traditional education and training in infrastructure management focuses on management issues such as creating databases of infrastructure inventories. There is a lack of education and training in technical aspects such as design for durability and structural resilience, condition assessment planning and execution, non-destructive testing, deterioration science, renewal engineering, concrete repair technology, structural strengthening, service life extension etc. In order to bridge this gap, the CIMM programme provides in-depth education in all these technical fields.
Budgets for infrastructure maintenance are substantial and will continue to be significantly larger than the budgets for the construction of new infrastructure in future. It is essential that the related available funds are spent in a cost-effective manner.
Advanced studies in Infrastructure Management and Maintenance stimulate further research and optimal solutions for problems related to infrastructure management and maintenance.
At present no other African university offers advanced studies in infrastructure management and maintenance in the form found in the CIMM programme at UCT. Similarly, there exists no equivalent postgraduate programme in the leading universities in Europe, North America or elsewhere in the world. The programme therefore offers a unique opportunity to gain knowledge and skills in one of the most relevant fields in civil and structural engineering. Students graduating with a postgraduate degree in CIMM from the Department of Civil Engineering at UCT will belong to a small group of experts urgently needed in the local and international civil engineering industries.