Barriers for collaboration among built environment higher education: undergraduate perspectives

The built environment represents a multifaceted sector characterised by its intricate nature, which demands effective stakeholder coordination and cooperation. Construction projects within this domain require the seamless collaboration of diverse disciplines, skills, and services. This collaboration is essential to navigate the fragmented and complex landscape inherent to the built environment. Recognising the evolving skill demands in the construction job market and the dynamic nature of built environment professions, higher education must update its approaches to serve as continuous education centres. Even though there are various studies explored numerous aspects of collaborations, intra-university, and inter-departmental collaborations have not been explored. Therefore, this study examines the undergraduate perspectives on the collaboration among built environment higher education by using one of the state universities in Sri Lanka as the single case study which offers all the built environment degree programmes under one roof. Primary data was collected through a questionnaire survey with 126 undergraduates of seven built environment degree programmes offered by the selected case study. The results of the study revealed that all personal, extracurricular and social collaborations are prominently existing in the context, while the existence of the academic collaboration was comparatively low. Further, the study discusses 20 barriers for collaboration in built environment higher education where rigid timetables and adherence to curriculum guidelines leaves little or no space for flexibility became the key barriers there. This paper elaborates each barrier to see how to overcome the negative consequences while enhancing the enablers to strengthen the built environment higher education collaborations.