The DigiChecks project, a European initiative funded by the Horizon Europe programme and led by FCC Construcción, has come to an end after three years of collaboration, technological innovation and institutional involvement to transform permit management and regulatory compliance in the construction sector.

The conference, opened by Elizabeth Rodríguez Rodríguez, Director of the International R&D Department and project coordinator, together with David García Núñez, Director of Communication for the Construction and Concessions Division of the FCC Group, brought together the various project partners. Jesús J. Mateos Hernández-Briz, Director of Technical Services at FCC Construcción, then presented a strategic overview of the project's progress.
The main results of the project were presented by Ignacio Rincón Goya (FCC Construcción) and Sander Winkel (Digital Construction), while Marina Agulló Antón (PKF Attest innCome) presented the final video of the project.

This was followed by a live demonstration of the DigiChecks platform, carried out by Unai Arenal Gómez, Ángel Luis Bernáldez Pereda and Pedro de la Peña Tejada from Ayesa – I3B, showing real applications of the system.

The event featured keynote speeches by representatives from leading institutions:

• Pablo Gutiérrez Velayos, Policy Officer at the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission.
• Carlos Toledo Rey, National Contact Point for Cluster 4 – Industry in Horizon Europe, Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI).
• Fernando Álvarez, Deputy Director General for Digital Transformation at Madrid City Council.
• Christopher-Robin Raitviir, Director of Digital Construction at the Tallinn Strategic Management Office.
• Sergio Muñoz Gómez, Director General of buildingSMART Spain.

The two sister projects of DigiChecks also participated, presenting their progress:

• Rita Lavikka, research team leader at VTT, for the ACCORD project.
• Mayte Toscano Domínguez, project director at OGC, for the CHEK project.

A dynamic round table on the ‘Double Transition’ was moderated by Ignacio Rincón Goya, with the participation of:

• Mark Moerman, founder of Digital Construction
• Pablo Vicente Legazpi, senior researcher at BDTA
• Rebeca Herrera Rodríguez, Head of Innovation in Licensing at Madrid City Council
• Pieter Pauwels, Associate Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology

The event ended with a closing speech by Ignacio Rincón Goya, who summarised the main conclusions of the project and its legacy for the digitisation of permit processing procedures.

ABOUT DIGICHECKS

DigiChecks is a European R&D project funded by Horizon Europe (Project 101058541), bringing together 13 entities from five countries, including companies from the construction sector, research centres, digitalisation experts and public administrations. Coordinated by FCC Construcción, the main objective of the DigiChecks project was to develop a modular digital framework to optimise the management of building permits and regulatory checks.

The DigiChecks platform works as a “platform of platforms”, enabling seamless integration between stakeholders through open standards, semantic technologies and artificial intelligence.

PILOT DEPLOYMENT

DigiChecks was implemented in three real-life pilot scenarios in Europe, each with a different regulatory and technical framework:

• United Kingdom – Civil engineering (FCC Construcción)

The platform was tested on the A465 motorway project (sections 5 and 6) in Wales, focusing on the management of environmental permits to protect species such as crested newts and bats.

Technologies used: GIS, Drools, language model-based AI (LLM), Azure Digital Twin.

• Spain – Residential building (REALIA)

The system was implemented in a residential building project comprising 74 homes and commercial premises, where electricity supply permits and regulatory controls were managed.
Technologies used: BIM, SHACL, process optimisation in Python.

• Austria – Office building (CREE)

Applied in a hybrid office building with more than 140 workstations, DigiChecks facilitated a unified building permit process, covering aspects such as zoning, acoustic compliance and building height regulations.
Technologies used: BIM, LLM-based AI, virtual reality and Azure Digital Twin.

KEY RESULTS

The DigiChecks project has delivered a number of key achievements:

• Modular system: The DigiChecks platform has successfully proven itself as a modular system that can be adapted to different permitting processes.
• Secure and seamless data exchange: Through the integration of dataspaces, DigiChecks ensures secure and seamless data exchange.
• Regulatory intelligence: AI-based models optimise the processing of regulatory texts.
• Semantic transparency: Using Semantic Web technologies, the platform improves transparency through machine-readable compliance rules.
• A flexible and scalable foundation: Pilot projects confirm that permit procedures vary considerably, reinforcing the need for a flexible, standards-based approach.

By integrating key standards such as BPM Engine, BPMN and a Digital Twin environment, DigiChecks provides a foundation for future automation, making permit controls and regulatory compliance smarter, more efficient and highly adaptable.

MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about the DigiChecks project and access deliverables or recordings from the final event, visit: www.digichecks.eu