Integrated Governance and Resilience Model for CDE in BIM Projects

Common data environments are often implemented primarily as technology platforms, although reliable information management depends on governance controls for information creation, review, authorization, publication, security, continuity, recovery, and long-term retention. This paper develops a lifecycle-based conceptual governance and resilience model for common data environments in building information modelling projects and assets. The model integrates information-state governance, identity and metadata control, role-based access, digital information security, business continuity, recovery governance, and an evidence-based governance capability pathway. The study uses a conceptual, standards-informed synthesis of ISO 19650 information-management principles, information-security and business-continuity standards, and relevant BIM and CDE research. A central proposition of the model is that technical recovery and governance restoration are analytically distinct. Accordingly, the paper proposes a post-restoration governance sequence comprising technical recovery, governance reconciliation, accountable reauthorization, and controlled re-entry of recovered information into the operational CDE workflow. Governance reconciliation is structured around information identity, revision or version, state or status, metadata, access and authority conditions, and relevant approval or audit evidence, assessed against a context-dependent governance reference condition. The model treats the CDE as a socio-technical governance system rather than solely as a technology product and extends established information-state and security controls into the governance of recovered information following disruption. The proposed recovery-governance mechanism, governance reference condition, reconciliation dimensions, and capability pathway are author-developed conceptual propositions. They are not presented as requirements of ISO 19650, as evidence of ISO conformity, or as empirically validated mechanisms. The paper therefore provides a conceptual basis for examining governed and resilient CDE operation across different levels of organizational and digital capability, while identifying expert and empirical validation as necessary future research.