CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS Y EXPERIMENTACION DE OBRAS PUBLICAS

Their core work

CEDEX is Spain's national public works research center, providing specialized testing, experimentation, and technical advisory services for civil infrastructure — from geotechnical engineering and hydraulics to transport systems. They operate major laboratory and field-testing facilities for soil mechanics, environmental hydraulics, and railway technologies. In EU projects, they contribute physical and numerical modeling capabilities, testing environments, and deep domain knowledge in infrastructure resilience under climate change and natural hazards. Their work directly supports the design, safety assessment, and digital transformation of Europe's roads, railways, and critical civil infrastructure.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early H2020 period (2015–2018), CEDEX focused on environmental hydraulics, climate adaptation, offshore wind structures, and establishing shared data exchange standards for research facilities. From 2018 onward, a clear pivot emerged toward railway digitalization — GNSS-based train positioning, virtualized testing, and multi-sensor ground truth mapping. Their most recent and largest projects (RAILGAP, GEOLAB) show a convergence toward critical infrastructure resilience, combining geotechnical expertise with ICT and data science.

CEDEX is moving from purely physical testing toward digitally-augmented infrastructure assessment, combining their traditional geotechnical strengths with GNSS, data science, and sensor fusion for smarter transport and civil infrastructure.

How they like to work

CEDEX consistently participates as a specialist partner rather than leading consortia — zero coordinator roles across all 9 projects. They work in medium-to-large consortia, having collaborated with 102 unique partners across 21 countries, indicating they are a trusted and widely connected contributor rather than a project driver. Their role pattern suggests they bring specific testing infrastructure, domain expertise, or validation capabilities that consortia need but don't build projects around.

CEDEX has built a broad European network spanning 102 unique partners across 21 countries, reflecting wide trust across the transport and environment research communities. Their network is geographically diverse with no obvious clustering, consistent with a national research center that serves as Spain's reference point for public works R&D.

What sets them apart

CEDEX occupies a rare niche as a government-backed research center that combines physical testing infrastructure (hydraulic labs, geotechnical facilities) with growing digital capabilities in GNSS and data science. Unlike university groups, they are directly embedded in Spain's public works system, giving them real-world operational context and access to national infrastructure assets. For consortium builders, they offer both credible testing facilities and the institutional weight of a national reference laboratory.

Highlights from their portfolio

• GEOLAB
  Their largest-funded project (EUR 346K), representing the convergence of their geotechnical roots with modern data science and ICT for critical infrastructure protection.
• RAILGAP
  Second-largest project (EUR 296K) combining multi-sensor positioning with high-accuracy digital mapping for railways — marks their strongest commitment to transport digitalization.
• HYDRALAB-PLUS
  Pan-European research infrastructure project for environmental hydraulics, connecting CEDEX's physical testing facilities to a continent-wide network of major labs.