<< Background >>Both in the public and private sectors, the construction and geospatial (mapping)l industry is demanding new approaches for urban planning, asset design and management. In order to reduce costs, environmental impact and carbon footprints, an integrated information management based on standards is required. One of the fundamental approaches in this developments is by bringing together BIM and GIS technologies. By connecting the construction and geospatial information management, an increased improvement of the construction processes, asset management, including buildings, roads, and other essential public facilities will be provided. It also helps to create a more sustainable and flexible transportation infrastructure and to create infrastructure investments with a reduced negative social, economic and environmental impact.However, the data integration of these sectors requires high expertise from professionals of both domains. According to surveys within the stakeholders in Sweden, Italy, Spain and Croatia, there is a lack of skilled personnel and VET courses addressing the competencies required to achieve BIM/GIS integration. Existing VET programs across Europe for civil engineers, architects, land surveyors, geographers and other professionals working on the built environment and urban management, usually include courses in BIM or GIS, but not their intersection. As a consequence, professionals of these domains rarely know how to solve problems where a unified approach to BIM and GIS data management and lack the technical skills needed.<< Objectives >>There is a clear need on the labour market for BIM/GIS integration competences. The project’s main objective is to bridge the gap between supply and demand of these skills by increasing the quality of the existing VET offer by developing new courses. The execution of projects using both BIM and GIS data require knowledge about data, operations and processes in both disciplines. To fulfil this need, new learning materials aiming at developing the necessary skills to integrate BIM and GIS will be carefully planned and developed. This material will specify learning outcomes addressing the achievement of knowledge on methods and mechanisms (mostly software tools and data modelling) but also on practical application cases.The expected general impact will be the improvement of quality of the VET programs within the partnership and the possibility of using these courses by other training providers as well.<< Implementation >>The project work will be structured around four main activities and related tasks.In order to create the right skills, materials should meet the needs of different target groups. To be addressed, these needs will be carefully studied during the first phase of the project. The first project activity will therefore investigate the market requirements (in each participating country) in order to specify the desired learning objectives. Analysis of existing materials, surveys to experts and market study analysis techniques will be used in order to define the specifications of the courses to be developed.Another crucial activity to be performed is the adaptation of existing GIS/BIM training materials from the participating VET providers to different languages and national needs. For this, translation activities are foreseen and it is noteworthy also the effort that will be dedicated to the harmonisation of the datasets to be used in the contexts of hands-on exercises.The core activity of the project will be the development of new courses for specific skills and competences, required by the industry. These courses will be used by the training providers to improve the quality of their VET programs. Training materials will be developed fulfilling the requested learning objectives identified in the first project activity and the process of creation these materials will be based on the SCRUM methodology, which is a well-known methodology in collaborative software engineering.The last activity of the project will be based on the assessment and test of the developed courses and related learning outcomes in the context of real training actions conducted by the participating organisation. This activity will assure further developments, updates and improvements of the materials based on real feedback coming from the trainees.<< Results >>New courses will be created and existing materials will be improved by experts in both BIM and GIS following identified requirements. The materials to be developed or adapted will be curated by experts on the domain and will include the latest advancements in both technologies. The courses will contain lectures, videos as well as data sets, assignments, reading suggestions and test questionnaires. By following the courses, we expect that GIS professionals will recognize the importance and understand the capabilities and information structure of BIM, how to harmonize and use this information in their studies and integrate it in their databases. On the other side, by learning how to use GIS data in their workflows, BIM developers and AEC Professionals (Architects, Engineers, and Contractors) will achieve greater understanding and access to valuable information to be accessed, managed, and used for decision-making.The project results will be provided under open licenses. In order to optimize the spread and usage of these results, dissemination actions will specifically address training providers adhering to the open learning paradigm. In addition, the project results will also substantially improve the training offer and capacity within the participating organisations.Another important project result will be the organisation of events addressing other VET providers and also potential employers and trainees in order to present and promote the project results and the importance of GIS/BIM integration. Furthermore, dedicated training events will be organized by the training providers involved in the project in order to test and assess the developed training materials in real training situations.

Science, research and innovation should be and through history they have been a drive of social and economic progress. Today more than ever our society is driven by scientific discoveries, innovation, and technology development. We cannot imagine our lives without privileges of modern society which were enabled by some of greatest researchers and innovators of 19th and 20th century. At the verge of fourth industrial revolution we should not forget our heritage and debt we have towards innovators such as Nikola Tesla – one of the fathers of second industrial revolution or researchers such as Marie Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Goal of this project Techno-Past-Techno-Future: European Researchers’ Night (TPTF-ERN) is complementary to the common main objective of European Researchers’ Night as it aims at deepening the understanding on what science and innovation represent. Researchers should be viewed as artists in their own way as their work is a way of expressing their creativity and originality. Their work changes the way we look at the world.