Our News

The MetaInfrastructure group had a strong presence at ICONHIC 2026, held in Chania, Greece, from 29 June to 2 July 2026, contributing to the conference through curated sessions, research presentations and an exhibition booth showcasing the group’s work on resilient and sustainable infrastructure systems.

Across the conference programme, MetaInfrastructure members and collaborators organised three curated sessions, focusing on:

• Resilience of ports, transport and interdependent urban ecosystems
• Rethinking wildfire resilience across the wildland–urban interface and critical infrastructure
• From data to decisions: the role of digitalisation in bridge integrity management

In addition, MetaInfrastructure researchers and collaborators presented nine technical papers, covering a wide range of topics including flood-resilient transport embankments, sustainable recovery of war-torn cities, passive ventilation in buildings, port ecosystem dependencies, bridge seismic vulnerability, sea-level rise risk to port infrastructure, wildfire exposure, power-grid recovery and steel reuse supply chains.

MetaInfrastructure also contributed to the Future Cities Forum: Co-Creating Resilient, Equitable, and Adaptive Urban Systems, a roundtable and forum focused on future urban resilience. The session created a space for discussion on how cities can become more adaptive, inclusive and resilient in response to climate, infrastructure and societal challenges.

Throughout the event, the MetaInfrastructure and Centre for Global Infrastructure Resilience (GIROS) booth provided a platform to present the group’s projects, posters, research expertise and team activities. It created a valuable opportunity to connect with researchers, practitioners and partners, and to exchange ideas on climate-adaptive, people-centred and systems-based approaches to infrastructure resilience.

We are delighted to announce that CLIMABUILD – Climate-Responsive, Low-Carbon Pathways for a Resilient European Building Stock has successfully secured €5 million in funding under the Horizon Europe programme, through the HORIZON-CL5-2026-02-D4-03 call.

CLIMABUILD received an almost perfect evaluation score and will run for 48 months. The project brings together an excellent multidisciplinary consortium of universities, research organisations and industry partners to develop climate-responsive, low-carbon and resilient pathways for the European building stock.

The consortium includes leading partners from across Europe, including UCL, The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction UCL, UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University of Cambridge, Brunel University of London, Delft University of Technology, Lviv Polytechnic National University, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Siemens, CORE Innovation Group, R2M Solutions, Penta Comunidad, E2ARC Architecture & Research for Cities, Metabuilding ASBL, insaat, and Fibrobeton.

We look forward to collaborating with this outstanding consortium to support the transition towards a more resilient, sustainable and low-carbon European building stock.

We are pleased to share that Prof Stergios Mitoulis has been featured in the list of 48 Influential Leaders Globally in Structural Engineering, under Category 7: Global Research Leadership and Advancing the Discipline.

The profile recognises his work in climate resilience, sustainability and digitalisation of critical transport infrastructure, alongside his leadership of the MetaInfrastructure and bridgeUkraine initiatives. It also highlights his research funding, publication record and contribution to bridge standards development.

We are delighted to announce that SHIFTIN – Towards Resilient, Sustainable, and Biodiversity-Friendly Transport Infrastructure has successfully reached the Grant Agreement Preparation (GAP) stage under the Horizon Europe programme.

With a total value of €11 million, this ambitious Innovation Action is coordinated by TECNALIA Research & Innovation and aims to advance resilient, sustainable, circular, and biodiversity-friendly transport infrastructure across Europe.

MetaInfrastructure is proud to be a key partner in the project through University College London, with approximately €713k secured to support our planned activities and research contributions.

SHIFTIN brings together an outstanding multidisciplinary consortium of leading universities, research organisations, infrastructure owners, and industry partners across Europe, including ETH Zurich, Politecnico di Milano, ACCIONA, Bouygues Travaux Publics, FEHRL, and Grid Engineers, among many other partners.

We look forward to collaborating with the consortium to help shape the next generation of resilient and environmentally responsible transport infrastructure systems across Europe.

Infrastructure systems around the world are increasingly exposed to compounding threats — from climate extremes and cascading failures to geopolitical disruptions and cyber-physical risks.
To address these challenges, we have launched the Centre for Global Infrastructure Resilience at UCL, a platform dedicated to redefining how infrastructure systems are designed, analysed, and managed in an era of uncertainty.

The Centre brings together two major initiatives:
MetaInfrastructure.org
Developing threat-agnostic resilience frameworks for future infrastructure ecosystems. Our work integrates AI, digital twins, and generative design to support adaptive, sustainable, and people-centric infrastructure aligned with the UN SDGs and Net Zero goals.
BridgeUkraine.org
Supporting sustainable post-conflict reconstruction through data-driven approaches that combine satellite imagery, digital twins, AI decision frameworks, and community engagement. The initiative already brings together 70+ institutions and more than €2.25M in funding to support Ukraine’s resilient recovery.

Across these initiatives, the Centre focuses on:

• AI-enabled infrastructure resilience and digitalisation
• Climate adaptation and compound risk modelling
• Circular and sustainable reconstruction strategies
• Infrastructure stress-testing through counterfactual engineering
• Capacity building and global training programmes

Together, these efforts have already secured over £9M in competitive funding and built an international network of researchers, engineers, policy experts, and institutions.

Our mission is simple but ambitious:
To redesign infrastructure resilience for a world of complex, cascading risks.
We look forward to collaborating with researchers, governments, industry partners, and international organisations to accelerate resilient and sustainable infrastructure worldwide.

Dr Nadiia Kopiika, a member of the MetaInfrastructure community was awarded the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Prize for Young Scientists, recognising outstanding scientific achievements and contributions to the advancement of Ukraine’s research capacity. The award was presented during an official ceremony by Ruslan Stefanchuk, highlighting the importance of scientific excellence and innovation in strengthening the country’s academic and research ecosystem.

The PORTAL Project (Threat-Agnostic Resilience of City Ports) was officially launched with a kick-off meeting held at County Hall in Central London. Coordinated by Dr Sotirios Argyroudis and with Dr Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis as the Scientific Manager, PORTAL is a 48-month Marie Skłodowska‑Curie Actions Staff Exchange project developing an innovative, threat-agnostic resilience and adaptation framework for city-port infrastructure and their interdependent socio-ecological systems. The meeting brought together academic and industry partners from Europe and the United States, marking the start of a collaborative effort to establish resilience benchmarks and proactive adaptation strategies for port-city ecosystems. More information: http://portcities.eu

Rethinking infrastructure design from component failure to systemic resilience

Professor Stergios Mitoulis from The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction (BSSC) at UCL has co-authored an international study published in Nature Communications, developing a resilience-based design framework that challenges conventional approaches to the design and management of critical infrastructure within interconnected infrastructure systems.

Co-written by Sam Dulin, Alexandre Bredikhin, Eric Treyz, Billy Leung, Jeffrey Dykes, Owen Karpeles, Shreeya Gurav, Alex Karhunen and Igor Linkov; the research used the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore as a case study to illustrate how the failure of a single structure can set off chain reactions, disrupting transport networks, supply chains, and regional economies. Through advanced modelling with the REMI TranSight platform, the team quantified the wider economic consequences, projecting substantial losses in GDP, employment, and income. In severe scenarios, the study found that full recovery could take until 2040.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-64683-6

The findings urge a shift in focus from traditional risk-based design to resilience-based planning, providing policymakers and infrastructure managers with new tools to anticipate and mitigate systemic impacts. The work was the result of close international collaboration, bringing together experts from the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Credere Associates, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and Regional Economic Models Inc.

By highlighting the societal and economic costs of infrastructure failures, the study underscores BSSC’s role in pioneering research on resilience and UCL’s wider commitment to addressing global challenges through interdisciplinary action. The evidence generated provides decision-makers with a framework to strengthen policy, guide investments, and update design standards, ultimately supporting more sustainable and resilient infrastructure worldwide.