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Grant Mills

Research Associate

Background

Grant has been a Research Associate at Loughborough University since July 2002, investigating value and the application and development of Value in Design (VALiD) within a number of commercial construction organisations and health and education public sector authorities and delivery vehicles. He presently works as a Coordinator for the Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC). A unique collaboration between existing research centres at Imperial College London and the universities of Loughborough, Reading and Salford. He has also established close collaborative projects with researchers from MARU (London South Bank), Sheffield and Heriott Watt. Prior to HaCIRIC Grant was seconded to Manchester City Council to embed customised value-related methods into their schools programme using action research and applied rigorous research methodologies to understand the processes, approaches and cultures within over 20 leading construction organisations to include: AMEC, Arup, BAA, Broadgate Estates, DLE, Shepherd Robson, RIBA, RICS, CIBSE and CABE. Before working at Loughborough University Grant worked as a Design Management Graduate for AMEC Group Limited and played a key role in a number of design and value management initiatives and co-facilitating VM workshops. Grant graduated with a First class degree in the Management of Design and Innovation and was the winner of the RSA Design Management design awards in 2001.

Professional Affiliations

ICIOB

Broad Interests and Expertise

Value Management
Problem Solving
Best Practice

Research Group

Construction Management

Previous Research Projects

1) Managing Value Delivery in Design
2) Value in Education Design (Secondment to Manchester City Council)

Other Information

Lecturing:
Design and Process Management MSC course: Stakeholder Value in Design

Publications:

Conference Contributions - Refereed

Thomson, D.S., Austin, S.A., Mills, G.R. and Devine-Wright, H.M., ''Addressing the Subjective View of Value Delivery'', ., Proceedings of Cobra 03 Conference, University of Wolverhampton, UK, RICS Foundation, September 2003, pp 197 - 213.

Mills, G.R., Austin, S.A. and Thomson, D.S., ''Values and Value - Two Perspectives on Understanding Stakeholders'', The Joint International Conference on Construction Culture, Innovation and Management, CCIM 2006, The British University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE, November 2006, pp 267-278.

Mills, G. R., Austin, S. A. and Price, A. D. F., ''Values in Designing Transformational Environments for Children and Young People's Education'', Health and Wellbeing, Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of Association of Researchers in Construction Management (ARCOM), Cardiff, UK, September 2008, pp 165-174.

Mahadkar, S., Mills, G. and Price, A.D.F., ''Strategic Asset Management and Master Planning within the healthcare sector: Exploring the theoretical need for evidence based change management in strategic planning'', International Postgraduate Research Conference, Research Institute for the Built and Human Environment, Salford, 2009, 78-90.

Mills, G. R., Price, A. D. F., Mahadkar, S., Sengonzi, R. N and Cavill, S., ''Who Or What Really Counts In Stakeholder Value Management: How Can Stakeholder Weighting Be Used In Strategic Asset Management'', HaCIRIC International Conference 2009, Improving Healthcare Infrastructure through Innovation, Brighton, UK, April 2009, pp 99-109.


Journal Papers - Academic Journals

Thomson, D.S., Austin, S.A., Devine-Wright, H.M. and Mills, G.R. (2003), ''Managing Value and Quality in Design'', Building Research and Information, 31(5), 1st September 2003, 334-345, ISSN 0961-3218.

Zhang, X., Austin, S. A. Glass, J. and Mills, G. R., (2008) ''Toward collective organizational values: a case study in UK construction'', Construction Management and Economics, 26(10), pp 1009-1028.

Mills, G. R., Austin, S.A., Thomson, D.S. and Devine-Wright, H. (2009) ''Applying a Universal Content and Structure of Values in Construction Management'', Journal of Business Ethics, In press. Published online 3 April 2009.