Programme
The full conference programme will be published here soon.
Workshops
The DBP26 workshops take place on the afternoon of 26 November 2026, the second day of the conference.
Participants choose one of the three workshops, or no workshop, when registering. Places are limited to the capacity given for each workshop.
Workshop 1
National Mapping and Cadastral Data – exploring the untapped potential of topographic maps in planning/building permits
National Mapping and Cadastral (NMCA) agencies are government agencies responsible for producing and maintaining a country’s (or a region’s) official maps. This type of geospatial data is the “geo” in GeoBIM. Sometimes known as “topographic” data, it includes detailed maps of buildings, infrastructure, railways, government offices, schools, hospitals, land use, land cover, green space, water bodies, vegetation, crops, forests and much more, and can provide much needed context to the planning/building permit process.
However, while such data usually contains extensive semantic information, it is often just used as a ‘backdrop’ – i.e. an unintelligent base layer – within the permitting process.
Our workshop – hosted by EuroSDR, a pan-European, non-profit network that brings together national mapping agencies, universities, and industry to carry out applied research in geospatial data – will address this issue.
The workshop will help us better understand and articulate the importance of NMCA and topographic data within planning/building permits, if/how it is used to enable a consistent, transparent and fair planning process, and how the “intelligence” in such data can be better exploited.
Target groups
If you work with GIS/topographic data as part of your role, e.g. you’re:
- An architect/designer/Civil Engineer/urban planner/city planner
- Work in a municipality/local authority creating local plans or evaluating permit applications
- Are interested in GeoBIM and how geospatial/topographic data can be better utilised within the permit processes
then this interactive workshop is for you!
Workshop 2
Applying psychology to the What, Why, Who and How (WWWHow) of decisions made in the building permitting process
Building permitting processes involve decisions that variably rely on sociotechnical factors, yet the influence of these sociotechnical factors in this specific context are not well-considered or understood. Further, the way in which building permitting processes have been developed has not considered the strategic organisation of ‘how’ a decision is made on the impact on that decision. Management is a process that exists to obtain results by making best use of the human, financial, and material resources available to the organisation and its managers (Armstrong, 1997) and management of the building permit process ought to pursue these principles. Nevertheless, while much attention and research exist about the permitting process (Fauth, 2021) the human factor is less well identified and integrated. The psychological and cognitive demands placed on decision-makers during these processes are complex and high-profile developments can carry reputational risk to both individuals and organisations. What building permit processes and the attendant decisions share worldwide are environments characterised by time and work pressure together with multi-layered intricacy and risk (Klein, 1993). It is therefore important that individuals who face such tasks can make accurate and confident decisions under varying degrees of stress and complexity (Adams-White, et al., 2018; Wheatcroft, et al., 2017).
This workshop will explore and consider the building permitting process together with the range of potential and types of decisions that can be made. It will also consider the actors involved in the process.
Due to the aims and objectives of the workshop:
- There will be a cap on numbers who can attend of 40.
- The target group for the workshop is those from authorities, those who make decisions and/or those who are involved in the permitting decision-making process.
- Because of the focus of the workshop, we suggest that some delegates will not find this workshop the best use of their time (e.g., researchers and software developers).
Keywords: Building permitting; processes; psychology; human factors
References
- Adams-White, J.A., Wheatcroft, J.M., & Jump, M. (2018). Measuring decision accuracy and confidence of mock air defence operators. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Naturalistic decision-making under uncertainty: Theoretical and methodological developments, 7(1), 60–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2018.01.005
- Armstrong, M. (1997). Management processes and functions. London: IPD.
- Fauth, J. (2021). A process-oriented decision model for determining the permitability of construction projects. Dissertation.
- Sujan, S.F., Jones, S.W., Kiviniemi, A., Wheatcroft, J.M, & Mwiya, B. (2019). Common biases in client involved decision making in the AEC Industry. Frontiers of Engineering Management, 6(2), 221–238. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42524-019-0026-3
- Wheatcroft, J.M., Jump, M., Breckell, A.L. & Adams-White, J. (2017). Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operators’ accuracy and confidence of decisions: Professional pilots or video game players? Cogent Psychology, 4(1), 1327628. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2017.1327628
Workshop 3
Building Permits Beyond the Big Cities: Challenges and Success Factors for Small and Medium-Sized Municipalities
Digital building permitting is often discussed through national platforms, advanced pilots and large-city frontrunners. Yet, in practice, the success of digital permitting depends heavily on small and medium-sized municipalities: the authorities that often process permits with limited staff, uneven digital capacity, constrained budgets and highly local regulatory contexts.
This interactive workshop will focus on what it really takes to make digital building permitting work beyond the largest cities. Through short expert inputs, live audience interaction and moderated discussion, participants will identify common challenges, compare practical solutions and discuss which success factors are needed for scalable, trusted and realistic implementation.
The workshop will explore:
- What “small” and “medium-sized” mean in the context of building permitting: not only population size, but also permit volume, administrative capacity, expertise, budget and institutional role.
- The main barriers municipalities face when moving towards digital permitting, including fragmented requirements, limited resources, skills gaps, legal uncertainty and uneven access to tools.
- How BIM, AI, automated rule checking and digital workflows can support permitting without creating unrealistic burdens for local authorities.
- Which parts of permitting could benefit from common approaches, shared rule logic, reusable tools or European-level support, while still respecting national and local regulation.
- How building-level checks can be better connected with site, zoning, planning and geospatial requirements.
- Success factors for implementation: clear data requirements, governance, legal clarity, organisational readiness, user trust, adoption, capacity-building and sustainable support models.
- What municipalities, researchers, software providers, national authorities and European institutions can each contribute to making digital building permitting scalable.
This workshop is open to municipalities, public authorities, researchers, software providers, planners, architects, engineers and anyone interested in making digital building permitting work in real administrative contexts, not only in advanced pilot environments.