The Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) completed its five-year mission on 30th September 2022. Our website is now focused on looking back at our achievements and recalling our five hectic, inspiring, and hugely rewarding years, during which we have evolved from a mission to a movement.
CDBB was founded as a partnership between the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the University of Cambridge and opened its doors in autumn 2017 with a clear mission: to expand and embed the digital transformation of the UK’s built environment. Although we had a small team back then, now, there are literally thousands of people working on the digital built Britain agenda: tens of thousands if you include the people making use of our materials and our outputs across the globe.
Together with our partners in industry, academia and government, we made extraordinary progress. CDBB’s overarching role was to bring people together- to convene, connect and coordinate across the whole of the built environment. We did so with energy and commitment.
As a result, we radically increased the UK’s digital-built ambition; produced resources and training that have grown global capability in Building Information Modelling (BIM) and digital twins; and undertaken key, foundational work to deliver the National Infrastructure Commission’s recommendation to create a National Digital Twin (NDT) of the built environment.
From 31 March 2022, CDBB moved into its final phase – passing the baton on to new organisations, while completing our work within the Construction Innovation Hub. We continued to drive the impact and adoption of our built tools and processes, working with Government and industry to ensure that our working groups, outputs and resources continue to have an impact over the longer term. From 1st April 2022 to 30th September 2022, our focus was on completing the remaining research and development projects and continuing to secure and embed the uptake of information management standards and tools.
Completing CDBB’s mission is an enormous achievement and will cement our impact, and ensure the value of CDBB’s contribution to bringing about a better built environment through digital continues in the decades ahead. We are proud of what has been accomplished and leave the industry feeling assured that CDBB’s mission will endure.
Thank you to everyone who worked for CDBB over the past five years – the core team; the industry experts; and our dedicated research teams. Thanks also to all those individuals and organisations who have partnered with CDBB, and those people and organisations who have adopted and utilised the outputs created by us all. Your passion and expertise helped contribute to CDBB being a provider of uniquely valuable knowledge.
It is time to turn the page but this is not the end of the story. The digital evolution of the built environment continues. It will be fascinating to see where it leads.
CDBB leadership team