Infrastructure megaprojects are historically associated with poor delivery, both in terms of cost and schedule performance. Large Transport Infrastructure Projects (TIPs) are amongst the most controversial and are often delivered late, over budget, and providing less benefits than expected. While there is a growing theoretical body of literature addressing TIPs, empirical research is still required to determine which TIPs characteristics affect TIPs schedule & cost performance. This paper addresses this issue, applying an empirically-based methodology to a dataset of 30 European TIPs. The results highlight the importance of financial support from the government and the strong influence of both external and internal stakeholders, mainly in relation to their early engagement and to their nationality. Technological characteristics and the presence of Special Purpose Entities are also correlated with the TIPs performance. These key findings both support and contradict the literature, and are relevant for both policy makers and project managers during the decision-making process, planning and delivery of TIPs.

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This is a repository copy of Managing social challenges in the nuclear decommissioning industry: a responsible approach towards better performance.

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The key characteristics of small modular reactors (SMRs), as their name emphasized, are their size and modularity. Since SMRs are a family of novel reactor designs, there is a gap of empirical knowledge about the cost/benefit analysis of modularization. Conversely, in other sectors (e.g. Oil & Gas) the empirical experience on modularization is much greater. This paper provides a structured knowledge transfer from the general literature (i.e. other major infrastructure) and the Oil & Gas sector to the nuclear power plant construction world. Indeed, in the project management literature, a number of references discuss the costs and benefits determined by the transition from the stick-built construction to modularization, and the main benefits presented in the literature are the reduction of the construction cost and the schedule compression. Additional costs might arise from an increased management hurdle and higher transportation expenses. The paper firstly provides a structured literature review of the benefits and costs of modularization divided into qualitative and quantitative references. In the second part, the paper presents the results of series of interviews with Oil & Gas project managers about the value of modularization in this sector.

The vast majority of project management literature relating to infrastructure focuses on the project lifecycle up to commissioning and handover. Conversely, little attention has been paid to the end-oflife of infrastructure, i.e. when decommissioning begins. Infrastructure decommissioning projects are long and complex projects, involving an extensive network of stakeholders. Moreover, their budgets can reach hundreds of billions of Euros and, for many of these projects, keep increasing. Since decommissioning projects do not generate direct revenues, they are often considered an expensive nuisance with limited value linked to their delivery. This paper explores the use of Value Management (VM), examining the constraints of decommissioning projects and the requirements for successful implementation of VM, focusing on the nuclear industry due to its techno-socio-economic relevance.Findings derived from the application of content analysis on semi-structured interviews with experienced decommissioning practitioners include suggestions on how to implement VM, ultimately contributing to increase the knowledge on how deliver decommissioning projects with better performance.

The increasing penetration of variable renewable energy is becoming a key challenge for the management of the electrical grid. Electrical Energy Storage Systems (ESS) are one of the most suitable solutions to increase the flexibility and resilience of the electrical system. This paper presents an innovative methodology for the appraisal of the investment in ESS. The methodology is based on the Real Option Analysis and it is able to properly consider investment risks and uncertainties as well as the options available for the investor. The paper assesses the value of the option to wait for a change in the market conditions before investing and re-evaluates the profitability of the investment after each step of the development of the ESS project. In order to exemplify relevant results, this method is applied to the UK energy market and assesses the technical and economic feasibility of investing in ESS operating price arbitrage and Short TermOperating Reserves. The results show that the implementation of the Real Option Analysis increases the economic performance of ESS. Nevertheless, ESS still requires limited incentives to be economically viable.

Practitioners and academics often debate about cost overruns, a pivotal part of the iron-triangle that is traditionally used to assess the project management performance. Intuitively, the term "cost overruns" refers to the situation where the actual costs are higher than the original estimates. However, especially in the case of long and complex projects, with several different budgets, significantly affected by scope changes, inflations, etc., the assessment of "cost overruns" can still be subject of misunderstanding. This paper addresses this topic by proposing a way to define and assess cost overruns, particularly in the case of long and complex projects (also called megaprojects) and when publicly available information is scattered. This is exemplified using the case of Nuclear Decommissioning Projects and Programmes (NDPs) that are representative of the above-mentioned scenario. Lastly, this paper reflects on the importance of highlighting the existing constraints and the assumptions adopted during the appraisal of cost overruns.