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Professor Gordon Masterton
On Monday 27th April 2026, at 7pm
Edinburgh and its hinterland is supported by iconic infrastructure that has contributed to its success as a global centre of excellence. Our Georgian and Victorian predecessors connected the city to the wider world with canals, ports, roads and railways and in the 20th century, air transportation arrived. Infrastructure has provided us with gas, electricity, fibre broadband, piped water and sewerage, and has generally improved the life expectancy and quality of life of the population.
In more recent times, we have seen some wise additions to our infrastructure, but also some expensive delivery failures. The talk will examine what we have gained from our policies and practice to build successful infrastructure and what we might have lost.
Before his appointment as Chair of Future Infrastructure in 2015, Professor Masterton was Vice-President of Jacobs Engineering, and he is a past president of the Institution of Civil Engineers (2005-06), Institution of Engineers in Scotland (2009-11), and past chair of the Construction Industry Council (2008-10). He founded the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame and chaired RSE Scotland Foundation (2019-25). He established the Centre for Future Infrastructure within the Edinburgh Futures Institute, to tackle complex infrastructure challenges, including resilience to climate change.
He chairs five Independent Assurance panels advising on major programmes. In 2021 he co-led a UK government study into the technical feasibility of a fixed bridge or tunnel link from Scotland to Northern Ireland.