The built environment sector has been making significant progress in raising awareness and understanding the benefits of diversity and inclusion, but how do we move beyond intent and slogans to measurable change?

Cognitively diverse teams enhance innovation, retention, and resilience in ways that resonate with architects, engineers and others across the sector – so how can we embrace neuroinclusion and increase levels of psychological safety in our workplaces?

Neuroinclusive design principles—clarity, predictability, sensory balance, and refuge spaces—also support safe, usable environments for women and other underrepresented groups. Lighting, sightlines, acoustics, layout, and wayfinding shape whether people can navigate and participate effectively.

• Do we need to measure inclusion and safety to the same

• extent we measure carbon and cost?

• Can we elevate neuroinclusion from aspiration to established practice, embedding it within professional norms?

• Can we move from narrative-driven DEI to evidence-driven inclusion science, focusing on the practical frameworks, diagnostics, and metrics to achieve measurable change?

This debate, in the wake of Neurodiversity Celebration / Awareness Week, asks how neurodiverse thinking can be recognised not as an adjustment, but as a catalyst for innovation and better outcomes.

Chair: Stephen Gill, Consultant & founder of Engineering Differently

Speakers:

• Professor Tadj Oreszczyn, Professor of Energy and Environment & Director UCL Energy Institute, University College London

• Naomi Glover, Neuro-informed Ltd & Kings Entrepreneurship Institute

• Peter Anderson, Chair - Troup Bywaters + Anders LLP

• Daisy March, EDI Manager, Institution of Engineering and Technology

• Martin Griffiths – Principal Geotechnical Engineer, GHD

Venue: CIBSE, 91-94 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8QP

Time & date: 17.30 for 18.00 – 20.00, 26th March 2026 (in person only)

Event registration at: https://ED192-Neurodiversity.eventbrite.co.uk

Downloads:

ED192 - Neurodiversity - Invitation

Neurodivergence in the construction industry - NFB

Opening up building services to neurodiverse engineers, CIBSE Journal, Jan 2022

Design for the Mind. Neurodiversity & the Built Environment - PAS 6463, BSI

Extended reading list:

Cultural Reframing & Neurodiversity

NeuroTribes – Steve Silberman
Reframes neurodivergence as difference rather than deficit.

Divergent Mind – Jenara Nerenberg
Explores gendered and intersectional dimensions of neurodivergence.

Cognitive Diversity & Innovation

The Neurodiversity Edge – Maureen Dunne
Links neurodivergent cognition to competitive advantage.

Rebel Ideas – Matthew Syed
Examines collective intelligence and cognitive diversity in complex systems.

Psychological Safety

The Fearless Organisation – Amy Edmondson
Definitive research on psychological safety and high-performance teams.

Inclusive & Neuroinclusive Design

Mismatch – Kat Holmes
Frames exclusion as design mismatch rather than user deficit.

Inclusive Design for a Digital World – Regine Gilbert
Principles of clarity and sensory balance applicable to spatial design.

Building for Everyone – Annie Jean-Baptiste
Embedding inclusion within systems and products.

Environmental Psychology – Robert Gifford
Evidence on how environments shape cognition and behaviour.

Measuring Inclusion & Governance

Measuring Inclusion – Paolo Gaudiano
Argues inclusion should be measured with the same rigour as financial and carbon metrics.

The Inclusion Solution – Paolo Gaudiano
Systemic integration of inclusion into organisational practice.

The Tyranny of Metrics – Jerry Z. Muller
A caution against poorly designed metrics that distort behaviour.

Conscious Leadership & Behavioural Foundations

Conscious Inclusion – Catherine Garrod

Measurement frameworks are necessary — but they are not self-executing. Inclusion ultimately succeeds or fails at the behavioural level.

Professional competence has been seriously called into question following the Grenfell Tower disaster, where the specification of safety-critical systems was compromised by insufficient knowledge, lack of clear responsibilities and ambiguous regulations.

Construction professionals and their institutions are being challenged to ensure this does not happen again and competence has become the main focus for achieving change.

Simultaneously the UK’s regulatory system is being rethought by Government – for buildings/structures and professionals alike. Both may result in more prescription and less discretion and autonomy, as well as greater reliance on expert systems and AI.

For a long time the professions working in the built and natural environment have been becoming more specialised and less generalist, potentially leaving them without the wider competences to identify and head off potential problems and interconnected risks.

This debate asks whether the professions are doing enough to respond to changing circumstances or might the current system of professionalism be replaced by a new, less welcome regime?

Chair: Richard Harral, Chief Executive, CABE

Speakers:

• Michael Woodrow, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at UCL

• Neesha Gopal, Facade Specialist, Foster and Partners

• Katy Turff, Deputy CEO, Engineering Council  

• Jon Vanstone, Chair of Industry Competence Committee, National Home Improvement Council and Certass

Venue: Arup, 8 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 4BJ

Time & date: 17.30 for 18.00 – 20.00, 20th January 2026 (in person only)

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