BuildOffsiteEU (2022-2024) Erasmus+ Programme

Designation: BuildOffsiteEU. Off-site industry: towards innovation in construction sector

Project: Belonging to the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, call 2022, of the Key Action 2 of the Cooperation partnerships in Vocational Education and Training.

Identification of the project: 2022-1-ES01-KA220-VET-000087862.

Duration: 24 months, from December 2022 to December 2024.

Budget: 250.000,00 €.

Coordinator: Fundación Laboral de la Construcción (Spain).

Socios: Knowledge and skills management centre -K&S- (Republic of Macedonia); Gospodarska Zbornica Slovenije (Slovenia); Istituto per l’istrucione professionale dei lavoratori edili della provincia di Bologna -IIPLE- (Italy); and Pedmede Somateio (Greece).

Website: Coming soon.

BuildOffsiteEU leads to re-skilling the workforce for the transition from traditional construction to industrialized construction (off-site) addressing their qualification aiming the treatment of the environment and the fight against climate change in line with one of the priorities of the Erasmus +. 

The construction sector has a direct impact on several of the indicators affecting climate change and energy use, which must become increasingly efficient and rely on the use of renewable energies to reach the agreed climate and energy levels. For this question, off-site solution in construction is a real option to ensure a sustainable building and the transition to this new scenario of the workforce skills is necessary.

Industrialised construction contributes significantly to energy savings by using fewer materials for the manufacture of its products, by shortening construction site times (with the consequent savings in energy demand) and by prioritising the use of elements made from raw materials with many possibilities for recycling, which contributes to implementing CE principles throughout the production cycle.  The overall objective of the BuildOffsiteEU project is to develop different tools to fill the competence-gaps of traditional trades in order to adapt them to a sustainability-relevant sector: construction industry. 

BuildOffsiteEU through the following specific priorities in the field of VET in construction, tackles these challenges:

• Adapting vocational education and training to labour market needs. Industrialised construction is perceived as a quality, safe, time-saving and cost-effective option. In order to keep up with the market, the re-skilling of the workforce is required.
• Increasing the flexibility of opportunities in vocational education and training. This project through participatory approaches and digital technologies will integrate good practises into daily activities, gathering the needs in all the partners countries of the project. The aim is to increase capacity and professionalism to work at EU/International level. Bringing the needs and opportunities offered by the labour market, to young people, women, migrants, and people at risk of exclusion will give the opportunity to be closer with business and the community links.

BuildOffsiteEU has addressed to adapt VET to the needs of the labour market in the construction industry and innovate VET implementation to face the environmental challenges. It leads to re-skilling the workforce for the transition to industrialized construction (off-site) designing a training pathway to bridge the gap between old and new skills and competences and setting a training path to reinforce the VET offer to achieve the environmental sustainability goals in EU.

Results
The activities in BuildOffsiteEU are aimed at managing it technically and financially according to the rules of Erasmus+ programme, developing products and bringing them closer to companies, VET providers, trainers, VET centres and potential clients of industrialised construction industry and public in general in Italy, Slovenia, Spain, North Macedonia and Greece. 

A partnership of VET providers, business associations, research centres, and a cluster related to construction sector has achieved products (Interactive offsite training path, Digital skills map, set of e-tools to inform on benefits of sustainable construction to companies and customers to face environmental challenges) and outcomes: to reinforce VET quality in the construction industry to improve the image of modern, innovative, digitised and green sector.

The BuildOffsiteEU project is co-funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ programme. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Fundación Laboral de la Construcción and neither the European Commission nor the Spanish Service for the Internationalisation of Education (Sepie) are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.