CIB is a worldwide network of more than 3,000 experts from 95 organisations focused on all aspects of research and innovation in building and construction.
CIB Members are institutes, companies and other types of organisations involved in research or in the transfer or application of research results. Member organisations appoint experts to participate in CIB Commissions.
CIB is the acronym of the abbreviated French (former) name: “Conseil International du Bâtiment” (in English: International Council for Building). In 1998 the abbreviation was kept but the full name changed to the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction.
CIB Past and Present
CIB was established in 1953 with the support of the United Nations. Originally, it was an association whose objectives were to stimulate and facilitate international collaboration and information exchange between governmental research institutes in the building and construction sector.
At the time, a key objective was to support the rebuild of infrastructure for European building and construction research following the Second World War.
In the early days, the membership consisted of 43 research institutes, mostly European. As these institutes placed a heavy emphasis on technical topics, so too did CIB. CIB Commissions were established and member organisations appointed their experts to participate.
This collaboration resulted in many important international symposia and congresses. It also produced a large number of publications that helped form the factual basis for developing international standards. Some were themselves used as such. Others were international state-of-the-art reports that for a long time provided an indispensable input to programming new research by the participating institutes and countries.
Impressive? Yes, but CIB has come a long way since 1953.
Today, we boast approximately 95 organisations as members with more than 3,000 individual experts that participate in 40+ CIB Commissions. These Commissions extend over the whole scope of building and construction research and innovation.
Amongst the CIB member organisations are many universities, most of the major national building research institutes across the globe, as well as many other types of organisations in the building and construction sector.
And whilst we haven’t forgotten our roots and still give considerable attention to technical topics, there are now also activities focused on issues like organisation and management, economics of building, legal and procurement practices, architecture, urban planning and human aspects.
Today CIB is the world’s foremost platform for international cooperation and information exchange in the area of building and construction research and innovation. We continue to grow our membership and expand our scope, to initiate new activities while maintaining the high quality of our products and services.