What is CDBB

The Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) was a partnership between the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the University of Cambridge, established by HM Government in the 2017 Autumn Budget as the home of the UK BIM and Digital Built Britain Programmes. It sought to deliver a smart digital economy for infrastructure and construction, and to transform the UK construction industry’s approach to the way we plan, build, maintain and use our social and economic infrastructure for the future.  

CDBB was a member of the Construction Innovation Hub, alongside the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), and we collaborated with other partners in the Transforming Construction Sector Deal. It was also home to a number of UK government programmes including the UK BIM Programme, National Digital Twin Programme, and parts of the Global Infrastructure Programme. The National Digital Twin Programme (NDTP), launched by HM Treasury in July 2018 to deliver key recommendations of the National Infrastructure Commission (2017) 'Data for the Public Good' report.

Our work toward a digital built Britain sought to digitise the entire life-cycle of our built assets finding innovative ways of delivering more capacity out of our existing social and economic infrastructure, dramatically improving the way these assets deliver social services to deliver improved capacity and better public services. Above all, it sought to enable citizens to make better use of the infrastructure we already have.