Construction

The thematic working group on construction is made of a dynamic group of 9 EDIHs: Connect (BE), DIHCUBE (IT), DIGITALbuilt (PT), Asturias DIH (SP), EDIH Südwestfalen (DE), Kielce Technology Park (PL), European Digital Innovation Hub in construction sector (BG), Fair (FI), EDIH-EBE (BE). 

Objectives

These EDIHs have agreed on collaborating and creating added value for their companies by accessing and sharing at EU level their experience, know-how and tools. The ultimate goal of this WG is to provide companies with the most appropriate support, increase their knowledge on how digital can improve their company performance, on concrete digital applications and services, provide better access to regional, national and European funding and enhance their digital maturity.

Foreseen and latest activities 

The working group started its activities already at the beginning of 2023 by regular online meetings and organized an official kick-off in September 2023. Since then, relations and collaboration opportunities have been strengthened, thanks to the dynamic and enthusiast members actively participating in the actions of this Working Group Construction. The foreseen activities are listed here under, with example of concrete collaborations: 

• Share the challenges encountered by the construction sector in their respective countries

• Share the issues related to the project implementation and to services provision to SMEs. The issues encountered with national co-funding in most projects has been widely discussed among partners in order to share best administrative practices and to speed up the full start of these projects. Divergences between EU and regional criteria were also shared among partners, as well as information on project reporting. 

• Share strategy, tools and services to address these issues. 

• Share best practices, services and initiatives in a cross-country mode

• Discuss how to make a better use of the EU Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA) for the construction sector: the WG had discussed at length the implementation of the DMA with construction SMEs and shared their best practice to make it more understandable and useful for the sector. For this, a dedicated tool, linked to EU DMA form, created by DIHCUBE, is currently under further development by the WG to obtain a tool that will give us an improved feedback from the questionnaires with construction companies and  allow us to share and compare data at European level. This dedicated tool has been presented to companies in the SAIE Fair (Bologna)

• Suggest to the European Commission new funding topics or calls;

• Identify and share EU funding opportunities: a dedicated sub working group has been created to identify and discuss funding opportunities for the members and for companies. This initiative has led to the building of consortia for upcoming EU calls. 

• Boost the generation of new collaborations among EDIHs stakeholders

• Activate cascade communication between EDIHs

• Facilitate the connection to other EU and country based- initiatives dedicated to the construction sector.

• Co-participate and joint present at international events. One example was the joint-participation at the ECTP annual conference in 2023 where the working group and related EDIHs were presented to a wide audience of innovation stakeholders. 

• Search for international experts (project reviewing) and for project partners in EU projects

• Link with EU initiative on construction

• Create a common digital innovation ecosystem at EU level: contacts are taken to link the WG to existing initiatives and projects on the digitalization of construction (Built4People, EIC, Nebula, Metabuilding Labs, Star*Track, …)

Meetings

The next WG meeting will be in person, prior to the EDIH Network Annual Summit in Brussels, on 26/11/2024 at 10:00 CET. 

The agenda is available here.

Previous meetings and activities

The sixth meeting took place on 04/11/2024.

The fifth meeting took place on 09/09/2024.

The fourth meeting took place on 05/07/2024.

The third meeting took place on 21/05/2024, focusing on the development of a tailoired made sectorial DMA tool.

The second meeting took place on 05/12/2023.

The kick-off meeting of the Thematic Working Group was held on 29/09/2023.

Contact

If your EDIH is interested in participating or you require further information, please contact:

• Digital Transformation Accelerator Team (for participation only), Helpdesk Email: info@edihnetwork.eu
• EDIH moderator: Stéphanie Roosa (EDIH-CONNECT): stephanie.roosa@greenwin.be

Please note that all the necessary documents of the WG are available for logged in users.