Nick Francis

Nick is a chartered civil and structural engineer, with over 25 years’ experience
and a passion for teaching.

Having served for 16 years as an Officer in the Royal Engineers he has worked
extensively in areas of conflict, post-conflict and humanitarian crisis. He is now a
trustee of international bridge building NGO, Bridges to Prosperity, so has a
deep understanding of the importance, impact, and fragility of infrastructure.

He was awarded the “Operational Engineering Award” for his design and
construction of emergency Ebola hospitals in Sierra Leone, and his innovative
designs for emergency flood defences saved the town of Romsey from
catastrophic flooding. As a specialist in blast and ballistic loading played a
leading role in protecting military camps in Afghanistan from very large vehicle
borne bombs. He also won the South East England Institution of Civil Engineers
awards for both “Structures” and “Innovation” for his design of a new timber
footbridge in a sensitive historic location. He worked as a construction manager
on the Westfield Stratford City site, delivering a £14M package of heavy civils
infrastructure work, and as a design engineer for Arup. He grasps any
opportunity to learn and is in his element when sharing his enthusiasm for
engineering.

After leaving the Army Nick worked for two years as a Principal Engineer at
Eadon Consulting, bringing together the disciplines of Structural Engineering
and Mechanical Engineering to design moving structures, and address the
intractable challenges of nuclear decommissioning. In 2018 Nick set up Imagine
Engineering, offering bespoke services in the fields of engineering education
and management consultancy into the construction sector.

Alongside his University work, Nick is also Director of Education for the Get It
Right Initiative (GIRI), a major construction industry body focussed improving
productivity, quality, sustainability and safety in the construction sector by
eliminating error. Nick leads the design and delivery of industry wide training
programmes which directly address the underlying behaviours, communication
and processes which contribute to the £21Bn cost of errors within the UK
construction industry.