A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project. According to the Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management, "Megaprojects are large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost $1 billion or more, take many years to develop and build, involve multiple public and private stakeholders, are transformational, and impact millions of people". However, $1 billion is not a constraint in defining megaprojects; in some contexts a relative approach is needed, such as in developing countries, where a much smaller project (such as one with a $100 million budget) could constitute a megaproject. Therefore, a more general definition is "Megaprojects are temporary endeavours (i.e. projects) characterised by: large investment commitment, vast complexity (especially in organisational terms), and long-lasting impact on the economy, the environment, and society".
Bent Flyvbjerg, a professor at the Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford says that globally, megaprojects make up 8 percent of total global GDP. Megaprojects refer not only to construction projects but also decommissioning projects, which are projects that can reach multi-billion budgets, and have a high level of innovation and complexity, and are affected by a number of techno-socio-economic and organizational challenges.
The OFCCP Mega Construction Project (Megaproject) Program involves projects valued at over $35 million.
Planning bias
Care in the project development process is required to reduce any possible optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation, as a curious paradox exists in which more and more megaprojects are being proposed despite their consistently poor performance against initial forecasts of budget, schedule, and benefits.
Downsides
Megaprojects are often affected by corruption, leading to higher cost and lower benefit.
According to the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), megaprojects are characterized both by "extreme complexity (both in technical and human terms) and by a long record of poor delivery". Megaprojects attract a lot of public attention because of substantial impacts on communities, environment, and budgets, and the high costs involved. Megaprojects can also be defined as "initiatives that are physical, very expensive, and public".
Examples
Megaprojects include special economic zones, public buildings, power plants, dams, airports, hospitals, seaports, bridges, highways, tunnels, railways, wastewater projects, oil and natural gas extraction projects, aerospace projects, weapons systems, information technology systems, large-scale sporting events and, more recently, mixed use waterfront redevelopments; however, the most common megaprojects are in the categories of hydroelectric facilities, nuclear power plants, and large public transportation projects. Megaprojects can also include large-scale high-cost initiatives in scientific research and infrastructure, such as the sequencing of the human genome, a significant global advance in genetics and biotechnology.
According to Bent Flyvbjerg, "As a general rule of thumb, 'megaprojects' are measured in billions of dollars, 'major projects' in hundreds of millions, and 'projects' in millions and tens of millions."
Rationale
The logic on which many of the typical megaprojects are built is collective benefits; for example electricity for everybody (who can pay), road access (for those that have cars), etc. They may also serve as a means to open frontiers. Megaprojects have been criticised for their top-down planning processes and their ill effects on certain communities. Large scale projects often advantage one group of people while disadvantaging another, for instance, the Three Gorges Dam in China, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, required the displacement of 1.2 million farmers. In the 1970s, the highway revolts in some Western nations saw urban activists opposing government plans to demolish buildings for freeway route construction, on the basis that such demolitions would unfairly disadvantage the urban working class and benefit commuters. Anti-nuclear protests against proposed nuclear power plants in the United States and Germany prevented developments due to environmental and social concerns.