ITA Tunnelling Awards 2025 – The Results
This year‘s ITA Tunnelling Awards were presented at the Southeastern Europe Tunnelling Conference in Belgrade, Serbia, from October 1 to 3, 2025. The Gold, Silver and Bronze winners, and highly commended finalists of the ITA Awards 2025 hale from 11 countries of the world and represent all facets of the underground infrastructure industry.
The Gold, Silver and Bronze winners, and the finalists of the ITA Awards 2025 in Belgrade hale from 11 countries across the globe
Credit/Quelle: ITA
The accolade honours the legacy of Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The building of their first soft ground subaqueous tunnel under the River Thames in the UK is still in operation today as an integral part of the London Underground metro system.
Major Project of the Year of More Than 500 Million Euros
Gold: Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link Immersed Tunnel, China
The Gold Award for the Major Project of the Year of More Than 500 Million Euros went to the Chines project Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link Immersed Tunnel
Credit/Quelle: ITA
Spanning the Lingdingyang Sea in the Pearl River Estuary, this 24 km eight-lane expressway integrates bridges, artificial islands, immersed tube tunnels, and underwater interchanges. The 5 km long immersed tube section – one of the widest in the world at 46–55.46m – comprises 32 tunnel elements, each 165 m long, 10.6 m high and weighing around 80 000 tons. To reduce dredging and accommodate large-span stress, a steel shell-concrete composite structure was adopted, lowering cross-section height by 1.6 m compared to traditional reinforced
concrete. Despite 20 typhoons during the 7.5-year construction period, the 1.3463 billion euros immersed tube works (with 1.4146 billion euros overall project costs) were completed with no casualties and no shipping damage.
Project of the Year up to 100 Million Euros
Gold: Hongyancun Station – Chongqing Rail Transit Line 9, China
At 116 m deep – equivalent to a 40-story building below ground – Hongyancun Station is China’s deepest metro station. Spanning 262 m in length and 22 m in width, the station integrates a 24 m wide and 21 m high cavern housing concourse and platform, two ventilation tunnels, four entrances, nine emergency exits, and a 180 m interchange corridor to Line 5. Built in four years at a total cost of 43 million euros (with 33.8 million euros for underground civil works), the project combined arch bridge mechanics with tunnel engineering to safely excavate mega-sections exceeding 400 m2. Prefabricated components reduced on-site assembly by 35%, and four 141 m elevators now cut hilltop-to-riverside travel time from 30 to 5 minutes.
Project of the Year Between 100 Million and 500 Million Euros
Gold: Yang Zong Tunnel – Kunming (Fude Overpass) to Yiliang Expressway, China
This 7.7km long twin-tube road tunnel will significantly ease traffic congestion in Kunming and along the Kunming-Shilin Expressway. The 269 million euros project passes through a mountainous terrain with large karst formations and high seismic activity. Designed with a 20.3 m span, a 207 m2 cross-section and height-to-span ratio of 0.62, the twin tunnel was excavated under complex geological conditions. Approximately 75% of the alignment passes through sandstone and shale, which exhibited high deformation. The route also crosses eight fault zones, including one near the Lannijing Reservoir that posed a high risk of water and mud inrush
Young Tunnellers of the Year
Gold: Aida Santos Santamaria, Spain
With a Master‘s degree in BIM for Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and ETH Zürich, Aida Santos Santamaria has contributed to the design of over 20 tunnels worldwide in the past decade. Currently Tunnel Design Lead in the Geotechnical Engineering Department at Typsa, she also chairs the young members group of AETOS (Spanish Tunnelling Society), Co-chairs he ITA young members Steering Board, and actively contributes to the AETOS and ITA Working Groups on digitalisation and automation.
Gold: Andrea Marchioni, Italy
Andrea Marchioni began his tunnelling underground engineering journey with a Second Level Master’s degree in Geotechnical Design and a Ph.D. focused on ground‑
support interaction in deep tunnels. After specialising in TBMs at the Polytechnic of Turin, he joined Geodata Engineering in Australia, contributing to domestic projects and global projects. He later moved to Pini Group in Melbourne and Switzerland and now leads tunnel and geotechnical design at Systra S.p.A. in Italy.
Technical Innovation of the Year: “Cutting CO2 emissions on the Toulouse Metro extension
Credit/Quelle: ITA
The Gold Award in the category “Elevated Thinking Underground: Shaping the Future” went to the project “Venizelou Metro Station”
in Thessaloniki, Greece
Credit/Quelle: ITA
Gold in the category “Technical Innovation of the Year” was awarded to the project “Cutting CO2 emissions on Toulouse Metro extension”; the “Product/Equipment Innovation of the Year” is a trackless transport system for large and super-long TBM tunnels in China. The Gold Award in the category “Elevated Thinking Underground: Shaping the Future” went to the project “Venizelou Metro Station” in Thessaloniki, Greece
ITA Tunnelling Awards 2026
The call for nominations for the next ITA Awards will launch in spring 2026. The awards symposium will be held in Lisbon, hosted in collaboration with the Portuguese Tunnelling and Underground Space Commission (CPT) at its 20th anniversary conference, 4–6 November 2026.
