Center for European Studies

Global Megaprojects: Shaped by Social and Institutional Environments

Giovanni Esposito, University of Liège

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Megaprojects are now as important as ever. As a response to the pandemic, the European Union has put forward the NextGenerationEU policy, making available a 2021–2027 long-term budget of €1.8 trillion to fund megaprojects with ecological and digital applications in the field of telecommunication, transportation and energy infrastructures. Similarly, in the United States a $1.9 trillion Covid relief plan is on the way. Despite their importance to policy-makers, megaprojects are often met with criticism and opposition by citizens, and often go off the rails – either with regard to budget or time, or both. This talk will position the problem areas beyond technical issues, and will connect them to the social and institutional environment within which megaprojects are planned and implemented. It will show that the management of these large projects is not always a rational, straightforward process. It can sometimes be a non-linear, conflictual, and political process shaped by the collective action of different stakeholder groups (i.e. project managers, policy-makers and citizens). Driven by divergent interests, socio-technical imaginaries and behavioral logics, groups will struggle to influence final decision-making outcomes through interaction with administrative structures and legal systems.

Presented by the Gainesville Project Management Meetup and the Center for European Studies at the University of Florida