Built Environment Epistemology: Knowledge Exchange through University-Industry Communities of Practice

This paper explores the nature of knowledge through a history of knowledge production in society. It emphasizes the modes of knowledge including explicit and tacit and argues for knowledge management and knowledge transfer as strategies to both codify explicit knowledge and extract and transfer tacit knowledge. One method that has been identified to encourage tacit knowledge transfer is communities of practice (CoPs). The paper argues for ways in which the university as an institution and network of institutions may serve as a CoP knowledge hub in specific regions to foster new modes of knowledge transfer beyond traditional scientific means. The paper concludes with a preliminary proposal for this type of CoP in the Built Environment Exchange (beX) as a model for international university – industry knowledge transfer in the construction sector.

keywords: epistemology, knowledge exchange, knowledge production, construction knowledge