Challenges, synergies and European outlook: LIT presents Construction Blueprint to the Irish public

Yesterday, the Irish partner organised an online dissemination event to discuss the challenges and results achieved by the project related to construction training. During the event, The CHARTER project was presented, another blueprint of Cultural Heritage, and the Minister of Heritage was participated, together with other national personalities.

Limerick Institute of Technology held the Construction Blueprint endorsement event in Ireland, with over 30 stakeholders attending from different sectors -education, industry and at policy level. The event was opened  by Minister Malcolm Noonan, Minister for Heritage with LIT President Dr Vincent Cunnane welcoming everyone. Dr Nessa Roche form Department of Heritage introduced the Cultural Heritage Blueprint (The CHARTER) and Lis O’Brien from LIT presented the Construction Blueprint for skills.

Both Blueprints, highlight that the tremendous change and transformation of the construction industry is a challenge and is not unique to Ireland but indeed a critical issue across Europe.  The policy responses to the climate crisis are now beginning to have profound effects across all aspects of society and the construction sector is at the forefront given the significant focus on retrofitting our buildings and constructing highly efficient new buildings.

We held some great discussions in the breakout rooms around the energy efficiency, circular economy and digitalisation needs and skills and we greatly appreciate everyone taking the time to attend the event as we know you are all very busy people.

One last thought: Fragmentation of effort across the education and training sector needs to be addressed – The endorsement event is an example of the collaboration and connection required.  We need to improve connections and progression options between Further and Higher Education, industry, and at policy level, we need to avoid duplication of effort, we need to plan now for the future (as opposed to being reactive) and we need to maximise our engagement with industry.