Transforming Construction with Off-site Methods and Technologies – TCOT 2026

Dates: Tuesday 18 - Thursday 20 August 2026 

Location: Business and Law School, City Campus East (CCE1), Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 1XA, UK 

Venue Access: The main entrance is step-free with automatic doors and there is lift access to all floors. More information on building access can be found on our AccessAble pages. 

Transport: More information on travelling to CCE1 and Newcastle upon Tyne can be found here.

Registration fees:

  Full conference: £500 (early bird) / £600 (standard) 

One day: £250 (early bird) / £300 (standard)

Target Delegates: 200 participants from industry, academia and government

Keynote Sessions: Four pioneering plenary talks and keynote speeches 

Previous Conference information: Transforming Construction with Off-site Methods and Technologies, University of New Brunswick, August 20 - 22, 2024.

Information to follow

Programme to follow. 

Exhibitor and Sponsorship Opportunities

TCOT 2026 offers a variety of partnership opportunities to advertise your organisation and/or products to members of the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Facilities Management industry. Our delegates will include industry leaders, academics, students and government and public sector officials. Partnering with this conference will allow your organisation to benefit from association with Northumbria University, IC3 (International Centre for Connected Construction), the University of New Brunswick OCRC, and CIB, while reaching out to a unique, captive audience in an engaging environment. There are many different partnership packages and benefit opportunities available at the conference, and we welcome the opportunity to discuss custom partnership packages that best suit your needs.

Download our Conference Partnership Opportunities Brochure

Keynote speakers will be added as they are confirmed. 

Conference committee

The conference is being organised by the conference committee below and the Northumbria University Event Management Team - Venues at Northumbria.

Professor Richard Laing PhD; PgCert(Hum); MRICS, FHEA

Academic Lead and chair of the International Centre for Connected Construction (IC3), Northumbria University.

I am Professor of Urban Collaboration.

I have particular expertise in the areas of collaboration (between parties, groups and individuals) and participation (of stakeholders and the wide community) in research. This has often drawn on my knowledge of emerging digital technologies, where the associated research methods are driven by a desire to identify and make use of innovative ways to communicate with target groups.

This expertise has been developed across over two decades of work funded by EU framework programmes, Interreg and various UK-based research commissions. My research concentrates on the subject of visualisation and its use within public evaluation of open space, built heritage and urban design. My skills in relation to visual environmental valuation have developed through my leading significant externally funded research (grant value £3.5Million), and that research has resulted in over 100 publications. I am a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). I co-chaired BuiltViz across 2007-present.

I am a Chartered Surveyor and a trained chairperson and assessor for the RICS APC. I represented the RICS on the European Construction Technology Platform, and am a member of EPSRC peer review college.

Dr. Ala Suliman, PhD, FHEA

Assistant Professor of Construction Project Management, Northumbria University

Dr. Ala Suliman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at Northumbria University (NU).  He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Civil Engineering Department of the University of New Brunswick (UNB).

Prior to joining Northumbria University, he worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) and as an industry postdoctoral fellow at the UNB Off-site Construction Research Centre (OCRC). In 2020, he became a licensed professional engineer (P.Eng.) in Canada.

Dr. Suliman has a diverse engineering background. He earned his Ph.D. in Geomatics Engineering and his M.Sc.E in Construction Engineering and Management from the UNB in 2017 and 2019, respectively. Before that, he obtained his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and his M.Sc. in Construction Surveying and Photogrammetry from the University of Benghazi (UoB) in Libya. Throughout his academic journey at UNB, Dr. Suliman received several awards, including the Award of the Canadian Construction Research Board for two consecutive years (2018 & 2019), the best research prize in different local conferences at UNB for two consecutive years (2015 & 2016), and the funding award of the MITACS industrial research (2020). In 2008, he was awarded the National Development Foundation Scholarship of Libya in recognition of his outstanding academic performance.

Dr. Suliman's professional experience spans academia and consulting. In academia, he has a proven track record of teaching and research at different universities. He has taught a wide range of Civil, Construction, Surveying, and Geomatics engineering courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. He is also the leading author of over 20 refereed research papers and a book chapter published in prestigious journals and book series. In the consulting field, Dr. Suliman has delivered numerous training programs to local consultancy firms and provided engineering consultancy and surveying services to leading construction companies in his home country for several years.

Passionate about applying his diverse backgrounds to real-world problems, Dr. Suliman thrives in collaborative and partnership environments. He is dedicated to enhancing workflows in the industry domain and aiding the academic community in modelling complex qualitative concepts. During his time at OCRC, he played a significant role in multiple research projects with public and industry partners, focusing on productivity simulation and lean-based improvement of steel fabrication, mapping technological innovation in off-site construction, maturity modelling and assessment of urban systems in terms of sustainability and smartness, and applications’ mapping of IoT sensors in smart building management.

Furthermore, Dr. Suliman had the honour of initiating and chairing the Transforming Construction with Reality Capture Technologies (TCRC 2022) event at UNB in 2022. This international construction specialty conference highlighted the innovative applications of remote data capturing technologies (such as Laser and LiDAR scanners, Camera sensors, GPR, Drones and Surveying equipment, IoT devices, etc.) in the field of construction project management.

Building on this success, in 2024, Dr. Suliman also had the privilege of chairing the international conference on Transforming Construction with Off-site Methods and Technologies (TCOT 2024), which focused on integrating advanced technologies and off-site construction methods to address productivity challenges in the industry. This event was in partnership between Northumbria University and the University of New Brunswick in Canada. Dr. Suliman had the honour of initiating and leading this collaborative partnership between the two research institutes for TCOT 2024.

Special Conference Hotel Rates 

Thanks to our partners at the NewcastleGateshead Initiative (NGI), attendees can take advantage of special, discounted hotel rates across a range of conveniently located city hotels. Don't miss out — view the hotel selection, compare rates, and book now!

Conference Dinner

The Conference Dinner will be held on Wednesday 19 August 2026 at St. James' Park, home of the world-famous Newcastle United Football Club. 

Dinner menu details will be posted soon. 

For general information or enquiries about the conference please email tcot.2026@northumbria.ac.uk.