First National Steering Group Meeting held in Croatia

On April 15, 2019 at the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Zagreb, the first meeting of the National Steering Group (NSG) was held as part of the BIMzeED project. The NSG (established in each project partner country) will act as an associate partner of the project and thus contribute significantly to the quality of the project results and, at the same time, strengthen co-operation among stakeholders.

„We are very proud that we have gathered the leading Croatian experts regarding nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB) and Building Information Modeling (BIM)“, said Srecko Vrcek, project manager from North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency (REGEA), one of the project partners. The meeting was attended by 40 representatives from various sectors of the construction industry – state and local government, science and education sector, designers, contractors, construction materials manufacturers, associations and clusters.

After the project presentation by prof Bojan Milovanovic from the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Zagreb, also one of the project partners, Srecko Vrcek presented what the NSG is and what is its role in the project. During the meeting the participants were also introduced with the questionnaire that they will have to fill in, in order to obtain useful information for the further course of the project. After the presentation of the questionnaire an interesting and useful discussion on the implementation of BIM in the design of nearly zero energy buildings has been developed.

The meeting ended with a conclusion that everyone agreed on- the advantages of BIM and digitalization in the construction sector are numerous and bring many benefits. But, if we want that these topics do not stay aside and finally enter the stage in a way they should be, it is of upmost importance that they  are introduced into the education system as soon as possible, which will later contribute to raising awareness among future experts and acquiring better competences on construction market .