We are delighted to announce that the Digital Roads Prosperity Partnership has been awarded the 2025 SCP Excellence in Collaboration Award by the International Society for Smart Construction and Production (SCP), the award was formally presented during the IPC 2025 Conference Dinner on 7 August 2025, Perth, Australia and though we could not be there in-person on the night, we sent our very grateful thanks to the Society and to the attendees at the awards night via our Technical Director, Prof Lavindra de Silva..
" I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the International Society for Smart Construction and Production for this excellence in collaboration award, which we are truly honoured and privileged to receive.
I speak on behalf of my colleagues from the University of Cambridge, Costain, Didimi, the Department for Transport and National Highways when I say that this collaboration ensures that we not only deliver on high-quality research but that we are also on a pathway to creating real impact and societal benefit.
The investigators and the researchers comprised the Principal Investigators from these five organisations, the co-investigators, the Costain Industrial Research Fellows, the Costain project manager as well as the Cambridge University research team.
The project itself was about using digital twins, smart materials, automation and robotics and data science to be able to digitalise the strategic road network which is managed by National Highways. Our aim was to create a digital twin, or a dynamic 3D replica of a segment of the strategic road network, which we have made into a publicly available data set. Our second aim was to create a simulation framework that can work on top of this 3D model of the road network to be able to demonstrate how we can repair the various assets that we find along the way, using a simulated version of an Autonomous Maintenance Plant (AMP).
Going forward, we'd really like to make this plant a reality. We've got bits and pieces working in the physical space already, and we'd like to make sure that ultimately an actual van is delivered for our partner National Highways.
I would like to thank the consortium once again for presenting us with this honour, and I would like to wish you a pleasant conference and a good evening."
This award celebrates outstanding achievements in collaborative efforts between academia, industry, and government that have significantly advanced the field of smart construction and production. Digital Roads stood out for its remarkable integration of technical innovation, real-world impact, and exemplary cross-sector partnership.
The Digital Roads Prosperity Partnership, driven by our diverse and cohesive team—including the University of Cambridge, National Highways, the Department for Transport, Costain, and startup Didimi—has set a new benchmark for collaborative innovation in infrastructure. From the development of the Autonomous Maintenance Plant and the open-access CAMHighways dataset, to the pioneering work in 3D scene capture, digital twinning, and sensor-integrated infrastructure, Digital Roads exemplifies the synergy and impact that this award seeks to honour.
The committee was particularly impressed by our ability to align academic rigour with industry priorities and policy objectives, resulting in technologies and datasets that not only advance the field technically, but also hold immense societal value.