The Centro de Estudios y Experimentación de Obras Públicas (CEDEX) was created in 1957 as an autonomous organisation, that at present is organically ascribed to the Ministry of Fomento and functionally to the Ministries of Fomento and Environment of Spain, in the sphere of their respective competences. Its goals and functions are collected in the Statute of CEDEX, approved by the Royal Decree 1136/2002 of 31 October (spanish).

CEDEX is an institution that provides multidisciplinar support in civil engineering technologies, construction and associated environment, giving assistance to various administrations, public institutions and private companies.

Its specialised technical units, Centres and Laboratories, some of which have been active for more than 100 years, provide high level technical assistance, applied research and technological development in the areas characteristic of the civil engineering sector: harbours and coasts, hydraulics of continental waters, roads, structures and materials, geotechnics, techniques applied to the civil engineering and environment and historic studies of the public works. These units devote about 70% of their resources to high level technical assistance and the remaining 30% to applied research and development, technological transfer and other actions on technical and scientific information.

Its wide range of activities include:

• Acquisition, analysis, treatment and application of basic data.
• Scale physical models and numerical simulation.
• Studies and research in its own installations and with prototypes.
• Quality control in public works.
• Support to the planning and implementation of the Departments own basic standards.
• Environmental studies.
• Auscultation of works, elements and systems.
• Scientific and technological information and documentation.
• Organization of postgraduate courses, seminars and other educational activities.

The specialisation of the human team, the singularity of some of its installations, the great variety of the civil engineering and environmental matters undertaken and the growing cooperation with similar overseas institutions, make CEDEX an avant-garde international organisation able to apply the latest innovations to solve the numerous problems that are present nowadays in the ambits of its specialisation, specifically those where civil engineering needs to be combined with the inherent environmental aspects, with a view to a sustainable development.