1. SBE16 Thessaloniki, Greece, 17-19 October 2016
“Sustainable Synergies from Buildings to the Urban Scale”
Upgrading Qualifications of the European Energy Professionals in NZEB - The MEnS project
E. Peñalvo-López, F. J. Cárcel-Carrasco, G. C. Christoforidis, A. Nousdilis, A. Riccetti, D. Melandri and G. K. Papagiannis

2. The Project MEnS: Meeting of Energy Skills
An Horizon 2020 project – Coordination and Support Action (CSA)
Dealing with Nearly-Zero Energy Buildings
Design and implementation of a novel educational framework
For energy & building professionals

3. Motivation and expected impact
Building industry needs to be ready to deliver nearly-zero energy buildings using innovative technologies
Existing training/qualification schemes don’t cover enough energy efficiency & RES issues, sometimes not attractive
Close the gap between energy performance at design stage and operational performance
Expected Impact:
increase skills of managers/engineers
increased energy savings/RES production
increased employability of building workforce
improved participation and skills for talented women in construction sector
increased investments in innovative sustainable energy technologies

4. Main Goal Increase the NZEB skills
Of at least 1800 building professionals - architects & engineers
Enabling interaction between academia and market actors
Focus on women & unemployed

5. Educational Framework
3 pylons:
The educational courses
“Front Meeting Skills”, a short-duration course based on real case studies
The e-learning platform

6. Educational Courses (1/3)
Level 7 European Qualifications Framework (EQF)
Designed by 10 universities & 3 market players
Common structure for all 10 EU countries
Workload equal to 10 ECTS

7. Educational Courses (2/3)
At least 40 building professionals per country per session
3 sessions will be held in each country

8. Educational Courses (3/3)
Six Thematic Units:
1. NZEB description and policies
2. Energy performance of building envelope
3. Building services for NZEB
4. Integration of renewable energy generation
5. Energy investment evaluation
6. Building energy modelling

9. Front Meeting Skills 3-4 days intensive course 4 FMS planned London
Cyprus
40 participants per edition
50% women/unemployed
Real case studies
Already held

10. Front Meeting Skills Cyprus FMS – July 2016
A mix of multidisciplinary presentations by distinguished speakers
And group working upon a real case study of NZEB building

11. Front Meeting Skills Cyprus FMS – July 2016
Presentations of the NZEB case studies
Presentation of ideas originating from the group working, towards NZEB transformation
Groups are constructed to be multidisciplinary and have various working experiences

12. Front Meeting Skills Cyprus FMS – July 2016 And visits to NZEB sites
To meet with energy managers, architects etc
And to cross-check with the ideas born during the group sessions

13. Evaluation Demographic & course statistics
Course questions in a 5-point scale
Categories:
Call for participants
Objectives
Content and materials
Lecturers
Global evaluation

14. Evaluation: First session (1/3)
400 professionals trained
Around 50%: women engineers/architects
Around 30%: unemployed
More than 1200 hours of
face-to-face
distant learning (online/coursework)

15. Evaluation: First session (2/3)

16. Evaluation: First session (3/3)

17. Evaluation Conclusions (1/2)
An overall positive view regarding most of the aspects of the course
Introducing multidisciplinary approach has been achieved, reaching a high score
Lectures were one of the strongest point in all courses
The fact that the course is a post-graduate one is quite important to participants

18. Evaluation Conclusions (2/2)
However
Participants not sure about NZEB qualifications helping their career
Reasons?
National transposition of the EU recast Directive not yet completed in some countries
Financial problems will slow down NZEB transition in some countries

19. Sessions in Greece (1/4)
Organized and delivered by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
2 out of 3 sessions held
January-July 2016
100 participants out of applicants
3rd session call already announced

20. Sessions in Greece (3/4)
Participants divided in multidisciplinary teams
Project to accomplish: Transform a University building into NZEB based on a realistic financial scenario

21. Sessions in Greece (4/4) Evaluation for participants in 2 steps:
Team project presentation & evaluation by instructors and other teams
Personal knowledge test
Test results – average score:
78% - 1st session
91% - 2nd session
All project assignments were well above average

22. Evaluation in Greece (1/3)
EMPLOYMENT STATUS

23. Evaluation in Greece (2/3)

24. Evaluation in Greece (3/3)
Out of 85 total participants in the evaluation procedure

25. THANK YOU
FOR YOUR ATTENTION!