Pulse appointed to London Higher Education framework

We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been appointed to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) framework. We’re also particularly proud to be the only company to secure two disciplines: project manager and quantity surveyor.

Director Ian Carey explains why this is an exciting moment for the business.

What is the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine framework?

LSHTM is a world-leading centre for research and postgraduate education that specialises in public health and tropical medicine. Part of the University of London, LSHTM is one of the UK’s highest rated institutions with an annual research income of £180 million.

The London campus is located on the heritage protected Keppel Street in Bloomsbury. However, the framework also extends to the wider LSHTM estate, which includes the University's campuses in Africa and Europe. The seven year contract will see the team assist with new builds, internal fit outs, refurbishments and infrastructure replacement.

The framework can also be accessed by six other universities, so there is a wide scope of work available – an exciting possibility for our team.

We’re thrilled to have won the PM and QS contract as there was a rigorous tender process. This included demonstrating a good standard of technical and professional ability, value for money and solid experience of collaborative working.

These are all standards we hold ourselves to when delivering projects, but working collaboratively is particularly important. Delivering a collaborative service is something we’re very keen to bring to all LSHTM projects by working closely with their team, as well as with the other delivery partners.

Collaborative working within the framework

Collaboration is, in our opinion, the key to successful working - particularly on higher education projects where managing a wide range of users and stakeholders is crucial. So much so that we’ll often work within our client’s office alongside the estates team to ensure that we’re working cohesively.

This added value approach to projects allows us to fully understand our client, including their strengths, weaknesses and challenges. In our experience this speeds up the briefing and decision-making process significantly and allows us to work better and more collaboratively with the project partners.

This collective ‘value-added’ method was something that LSHTM particularly embraced from our pitch and their team is keen to implement this way of working on all the projects we’ll be involved in across the framework.

Our work in London

This appointment also coincides with the relocation of our London office. We recently moved to The Building Society in Fitzrovia, which is a collaborative space (we like to collaborate in all aspects of our business!) for property and construction firms.

With clients and partners being based in this building, it makes it a fantastic place to do business and work on live and prospective projects.

The office is spearheaded by myself and Paul Adams, who joined the firm in September. In 2020 we’re really looking to expand our London base and recruit some top talent. 2020 marks our tenth year in business and we have an ambitious growth plan that we’re looking forward to continuing to rollout across our four, soon to be five, offices.

We have a number of really exciting projects in London, including Residential, Student accommodation, Commercial fit out, Higher Education and Health schemes  We’re therefore on the lookout for some talented, hardworking, collaboratively minded people to come join the team to help drive the growth of the office and the services we are delivering to our clients.

Looking forward to 2020

2020 is set to be a promising year, with a new London base, a new regional office opening planned around Easter and ambitious growth plans to expand the team, it’s an exciting time for the business.

This framework will boost those ambitions and further cement our expertise and experience, both within the higher education sector and the Greater London area. We’re really looking forward to getting stuck into our first project and working closely with LSHTM and the project team.

To find out more about the projects we’ve been working on, visit our portfolio page or to keep up to date with our latest news, please follow @Pulse_Consult on Twitter.