Dr Juliano Denicol (UCL Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction) is leading on a partnership with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to boost global social and economic development through infrastructure investment and delivery.

As countries around the world work to tackle climate change and build back better post-pandemic, many are investing more heavily in implementing major projects to enable this work. The USA is one country investing heavily in infrastructure, with President Joe Biden predicting an ‘infrastructure decade’, after the House of Representatives approved the Build Back Better Act in November 2021.

Major countrywide infrastructure projects, often called ‘megaprojects’, require investment running into billions of pounds of public money every year. Many fail to deliver on their goals, due to the complex challenges such projects face, from people and project management to dealing with everyday difficulties and implementing effective financial management. A pre-pandemic example in the UK is Crossrail, which is over-budget and now scheduled to open in the first half of 2022, having been delayed since 2018.