In the MENA region the unemployment rate among HE graduates is among the highest in the world as a direct result of the mismatch between education outcomes and expectations of the labor market. With the fast evolving pattern of the market-needs as a result of revolutionary technologies such as Industry 4.0, AI, robotics and machine learning, a new shift in human resource requirements map is at hand leaving HEIs with an inevitable time-pressing challenge to adjust the learning processes to yield particular competencies that expand way beyond the technical knowledge that has been the focus for many decades. It is thus the aim of this project is to develop a generation of globally-exposed HE graduates, equipped with essential character, social and cognitive skills blended with academic competencies, with a higher degree of readiness for the fast-evolving community and job market, and who are capable to integrate effectively in multi-cultural, diverse eco-system. Hence, Competence-tailored Student Journey Map that blends academic and academic-complimentary competencies during the student lifetime is introduced. A pilot set of competence-tailored 35 short- and 10 long-term extracurricular activities & “quests” are designed and programmed into the LMS & SIS of partner HEIs, along with 35 courses (120 ECTS) in Engineering and ICT restructured to align with SDGs in competency-based format, targeting the full envisioned picture of the future “Global Citizen” possessing competencies that were clearly identified via an exhaustive gap analysis developed at the beginning of the project. A target of at least 60 students at each of the 7 partner HEIs in Egypt, Jordan and Algeria is planned. Student-Stakeholders Engagement Portal, where employers and students share their profiles and where both have open arena to engage in internships, summer jobs, capacity building programs is essential in the proposed integrative (academic/extracurricular/industry engagement) approach.

<< Background >>The applicants have found that there are serious shortcomings in teaching on the digitization of the building industry. This concerns both, the challenges of new technologies and the internationalization in the management of construction projects. The domains architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) are currently in a paradigm shift from plan-based to model-based work (BIM). The higher education (HEI) at universities must respond to this. With the BIM4HEI cooperation between European educational institutions, knowledge can be exchanged, joint action strategies can be developed and the teaching materials created can be mutually assessed. The practical relevance is guaranteed through the involvement of professional origanizations from the construction industry. The construction industry has a very high level of interest in digitally competent engineers and in professional training. The Building Information Modeling (BIM) method offers the ideal core of interdisciplinary and internationalized teaching. BIM promotes the collaborative planning, building and operation of the built environment. At its core is the digital building model, i.e. the digital twin of planning, construction and operation. BIM is a digital methodology that will lead to huge changes in the performances of professionals in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector, particularly regarding architects, civil engineers and contractors. Improving the technical skills of AEC young professionals especially in the civil and building engineering fields is an important contribution to generating a more skilled workforce capable of facing new technological changes that will challenge Europe.<< Objectives >>Most of the activities and results listed in as intellectual outputs of the project will be maintained after the project end, following one of the main aims of the project, which is to produce and make available open access resources in multiple languages.An Exploitation and Sustainability Strategy will be prepared and updated during the project, including: analysis and evaluation of the exploitation potential and strategy of the project results, exploitation routes and target groups; individual exploitation plans for all partners; analysis of factors that might influence the future exploitation and sustainability of the project’s outputs; methodology and strategy for an appropriated management of the knowledge generated and IPR issues related to exploitation beyond the lifetime of the project.The main project outputs will continue to be available and to be used by the project partners, since they all carry out activities where the outputs of the project will be very useful. All the partners wish to integrate the results into their AEC HEI curricula. The produced contents can also be used for the life-long learning by AEC professionals, promoted by associated partners and similar professionals boards or associations of the AEC section in other countries.The project web portal will be maintained for at least 3 years after the project is finished and this will be funded through the internal resources of the promoter. Public outputs will remain accessible under the open access policy of the project for the same time frame. The project web portal will have a series of resources available, namely:- The BIM teaching approach and the BIM students approach and supporting documents (Students guide, lecturers reference guide) available through the multilingual web portal in English, Portuguese, Czech and German.- Guidelines to implement lecturers workshops, and BIM short courses for students to test the BIM teaching approach and insert adjustments according to each national/local reality- The tools also available in 4 languages through the web portal- Detailed programmes of activities, resources and other useful tools to organize BIM short courses for students and other related events, including: specific marketing strategy and tools, assessment tools also available in 4 languages through the webportal.It is also expected that the collaboration among project partners will be maintained after the project.The educational institutions are pursuing three long-term goals: (1) To be able to offer their own studies a better educational offer on digital and global-collaborative and methods of construction, environmental engineering, geospatial engineering, quantity surveying and construction project management. (2) Promote the exchange between students from the own and foreign universities. (3) To offer business partners a technological and intellectual platform for transfer research. To reach this goals exploitation and Sustainability strategy will be prepared and updated during the project, including: analysis and evaluation of the exploitation potential and strategy of the project results, exploitationroutes and target groups; individual exploitation plans for all partners; analysis of factors that might influence the futureexploitation and sustainability of the project’s outputs; methodology and strategy for an appropriated management of theknowledge generated and IPR issues related to exploitation beyond the lifetime of the project.<< Implementation >>As mentioned previously, the project includes a quality assurance system and a dedicated team that will produce a strategy and a set of tools to ensure the achievement (quantitative and qualitative) of the established goals. There will be specific tools and indicators for each activity and component of the project:1. Overall project management (indicators and activities):- Monitoring and Quality Assurance strategy with quantitative and qualitative indicators covering: Project management aspects, Dissemination and impact targets, Quality of the development of the outputs and activities.- Internal monitoring questionnaires to be collected every 6 months from partners, to assess the overall development of the activities,- Financial progress report (every 6 months)- Regular meeting among partners (monthly webmeetings) to continuously monitor the development of the project + partnership meetings.2. Development of outputs and related activities:- For each output/activity/event, concrete quantitative and qualitative indicators will be developed and measured, e.g.a) Quantitative indicators: nr of lecturers involved in activities, nr of students involved in the short courses, nr of multiplier events organised and nr/type of participants, nr of visits to the website, nr of HEI involved in each multiplier event and specially in the final multiplier event), etc.b) Qualitative indicators and activities:- Internal peer review system for outputs; final revision by the coordinator.- Panel meetings for project progress evaluation will be promoted and those will include invitations to relevant stakeholders in education such as academics, lecturers, educational authorities, as well as students foruns, BIM forums, The Portuguese BIM Technical Group. The evaluation potential of social networks (such as facebook and twiter) will be used to constantly monitor project progress.- Each Output will have a specific assessment activity with tools that will be implemented by partners with the support of CTU.- For BIM Teaching Approach: partners will develop guidelines and specific tools to collect the feedback of the lecturers regarding the use of the BIM Teaching Approach; partners will support, at national level, the testing of this Approach and compile the feedback obtained. With the feedback collected, partners will discuss the adjustments required to develop the final version of the Approach and the Teaching Guide. Each Output will have a specific assessment activity with tools that will be implemented by partners.- For Student Short Training: partners will present tools and mechanisms for the assessment of the Student Short Training that include the assessment of the BIM Practical Tools and of the MOOC. A specific assessment plan will be developed encompassing the stages of preparation, implementation and follow up of the Courses. The assessment will cover different dimensions and indicators, including:a) Degree of satisfaction of all actors involved in the preparation and implementation of the events (e.g. partners, lecturers, students, external organisations supporting the Student Short Training courses).b) Assessment of cost-efficiency for the organisation and implementation of the events.c) Competences developed during the preparation and implementation of the Training.d) Suggestions of improvement for future editions.3. Implementation of multiplier events, dissemination actions and learning/teaching/training activities:- Dissemination plan in the beginning of the project, to be regularly updated and including target groups, dissemination tools, media, etc.- Dissemination reporting to be carried out regular- Guidelines for the preparation of events- Dedicated marketing strategy- Definition of criteria to select participants and associated desired profile- “Satisfaction survey” will be distributed both to lecturers and to students participating in project activities.<< Results >>The main results of the project will be generated around the development of PRACTICAL APPROACH TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF BIM IN HEI and PRACTICAL TOOLS FOR BIM TEACHING described in the outputs.The Practical approach to the implementation of BIM in HEI (O1) will be designed and produced to be implemented in the partnership HEI and after to be spread for other HEI. The Practical tools for BIM teaching will include: structure and integrated practical examples of BIM application in digital support that can be used in different HEI as support of teaching lessons; conferences and debates with lecturers, students, and other stakeholders/organisations; BIM rules developers, etcAssociated to these outputs, several multiplier events and learning/teaching/training activities will be organised: 3 short training courses for lecturers and students in CZ, GE and PT, associated with meetings and multiplier events; its results will be disseminated and discussed in the 5th multiplier event in CZ, where also will be presented the final results of the project, the next activities and where will explore the possibilities of transferring the results of the project for other HEI.A1 – Administrative, financial and technical management and control: A Project management kit will be developed in the beginning of the project, including:a) Project management manual with: activities and outputs to be produced; responsibilities of each partner; partners contacts and means of communication; reporting mechanisms, tools and deadlines; templates for the development of documents and reporting.b) List of contacts of all organisations involved in the implementation of the project, staff that will manage administrative and financial issues; internal mailing list to easy the day-to-day contact among partners.c) Internal repository of documents and collaborative area for partners. To support the elaboration of reports and ensure maximum efficiency, the partnership will produce 6-month progress reports to monitor financial, dissemination and technical aspects of its development.A2 – Quality strategy and tools: With a partner dedicated to the quality control of the project, the partnership will have a quality manager and project monitoring tools, including a Quality Management plan, Monitoring tools and indicators and monitoring reports. These tools will be closely connected and under the responsibility of the same partner -CTU, who will develop the tools and methodologies .A3 – Marketing strategy and tools: Besides specific activities within all outputs dedicated to promote, disseminate and exploit specific results or activities, UA (with the collaboration of the whole partnership) will develop a Dissemination and Communication Strategy and respective Tools, which will ensure continuous promotion of the project, visual coherence (project visual identity including logo, templates, etc.) and a detailed planning and monitoring of all dissemination and promotion actions (dissemination plan and database of contacts of target groups to be continuously updated).In connection with Output-related activities to promote the exploitation and sustainability of all outputs, partners will develop a Project Exploitation and Sustainability Strategy, including an IPR agreement to support the follow up of the project.Partnership meetings: 5 meetings will be organised (all of them associated with International Multiplier Events) in key moments of the project. These meetings will be crucial moments of planning, balance of experiences and evaluation of project achievements and best practices, where partners discuss project implementation and outcomes and results dissemination. The conclusions of these Project Meetings will be determinant on defining best strategies to achieve project goals in HEI of each partner. Minutes and other support documents will be produced for each meeting.

For the purpose of creating digitalisation and automation solutions Arrowhead Tools adresses engineering methodologies and suitable integrated tool chains. With the global aim of substantial reduction of the engineering costs for digitalisation/automation solutions. Thus the Arrowhead Tools vision is: - Engineering processes and tool chains for cost efficient developments of digitalization, connectivity and automation systems solutions in various fields of application For the further and wider commercialisation of automation and digitalisation services and products based on SOA, Arrowhead Framework and similar technologies there is a clear need for engineerings tools that integrates existing automation and digitalisation engineering procedures and tool with SOA based automation/digitalisation technology. For this purpose the Arrowhead Tool’s grand challenges are defined as: - Engineering costs reduction by 40-60% for a wide range of automation/digitalisation solutions. - Tools chains for digitalisation and automation engineering and management, adapted to: 1. existing automation and digitalisation engineering methodologies and tools 2. new IoT and SoS automation and digitalisation engineering and management tools 3. security management tools - Training material and kits for professional engineers The results will create impact on: - Automation and digitalisation solution market - Automation and engineering efficiency and the SSBS market - Automation and digitalisation security - Competence development on engineering of automation and digitalisation solution