The International Megaprojects Workshop: Theory Meets Practice, organized by the Université du Québec à Montréal and its main partners, was held at the Université du Québec à Montréal from June 12 to 14, 2019.

This international event brought together high-level academic researchers, who share a subject of common interest: the study of large-scale projects.

Montreal is recognized as an important hub for research on major projects. The organization of this event offers an unparalleled opportunity to establish strong links between the current research centers of the large Universities of Montreal, all of which work for the same purpose, namely the improvement of mega-project management practices. In this spirit of connection, a multi-university organizing committee has been set up. This committee brings together the Université du Québec à Montréal, the École de technologie supérieure, HEC Montréal, the École Polytechnique de Montréal, the Université de Montréal and Kheops, the International Consortium for Research on the Governance of Major Infrastructure Projetcs.

Major projects, or megaprojects, are usually defined as projects valued at over $ 100 million and characterized by a high level of technological, environmental, organizational and / or societal complexity. These projects also stand out with a relatively low level of success, from the point of view of scope, time, cost and expected benefits.

The Megaprojects Workshop conferences were therefore part of this process of academic researchers to identify, analyze, evaluate and test concrete solutions to this situation. However, the most promising solutions must be imagined by combining the expertise of practitioners and university researchers, hence the subtitle of the conference: "Theory meets practice". As mentioned in this proposal, a great deal of space was given to exchanges and debates between practitioners and researchers so that collectively they can contribute in a very significant way to the advancement of knowledge.

The theme proposed for the 2019 edition was that of artificial intelligence (AI). Although the concept has existed for a long time, recent years have been marked by a strong interest in the field. AI and all the new potentialities of information technologies open the way to applications previously difficult to imagine, even if the term "artificial intelligence" occupies the public space for a few decades with the work precursors in robotics and machine learning.


Program

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