Integrated Digital Models for the Representation and Diagnosis in Existing Buildings: The Clust-ER BUILD Project for the Value Chain Innovation

Introduction

The project “Clust-ER BUILD” project, founded by the Emilia Romagna Region proposes a public-private partnership, through a collaborative approach among Universities, Public Administrations, public and private research centres and industries in order to foster regional competitiveness in the construction industry. Since 2016, the “Clust-ER BUILD” project has been the first national construction cluster, which aims to identify and update strategic areas for intervention in the construction sector, thanks to the active participation of more than eighty associates scientifically coordinated by University of Ferrara. Based on the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of both the regional and the national economy with wide stakeholder involvement, the “Clust-ER BUILD” is a public-private association which leads to the updating of the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3).

Within the project, the Public Private Partnership strategy leads to the definition of the conditions, boundaries and interdisciplinary competencies and therefore the innovation of products and services. Starting from this background, “human capital” is considered as both a productive asset and as a product that can be exported for a high value return.

The Clust-ER Building and Construction, Clust-ER BUILD, project focuses on three strategic lines of research and innovation through working groups, based on Value Chain method of analysis in order to represent the Emilia-Romagna building and construction system. The three main value chains focus on the following tasks:

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  “Conservation and valorization of built heritage” toward improvement and smart reuse, by means of technological and process innovations;

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  “Energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings”, for energy efficient, resilient and sustainable buildings;

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  “Safety of buildings and civil infrastructures”, to mitigate vulnerability and environmental (seismic, hydraulic and hydrogeological) risks.

The building and construction sector represents a strategic area in regional, national and European economies. Despite the ongoing crisis in the sector, the importance of the construction industry is strengthened by the large number of employees and the potential for innovation development attributed to it by other sectors such as the energy and, particularly, the ICT market (Euroconstruct, 2018).

In 2016 the Emilia-Romagna region financed seven Clust-ER Associations, which belong to the High Technology Network, since the competitiveness of all sectors relies on the ability and capability of an entire local system, research centres, businesses and training bodies to be innovative and attractive. The seven Clust-ERs of the Emilia-Romagna ecosystem operate in a coordinated way in order to establish stable networks and connections with other public/private agglomerations operating in the same sectors at national and European level. Consequently, Clust-ER BUILD operates in synergy with Clust-ER ICT and Clust-ER Energy.

The construction industry suffers from an internal shortage of industrialized tools and methods in order to support effective decision-making, knowledge economy and sustainable development, especially at national level (Rooney, Hearn, & Abraham, 2005).

ICT tools such as BIM and Key Enabling technologies, KETs, can enable knowledge modelling and the generation of standards in order to make the combination of innovative technologies and collaborative design through disciplines effective (Carraher, Smith, DeLisle, & Henderson, 2017). In this framework, the “Cust-ER BUILD” project aims to achieve several challenges related to the digitization of the both regional and national construction sector through a common strategy, shared among the partners and stakeholders, and three main actions:

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  Collaborative, public-private industrial research projects;

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  Collaborative, public-private higher education projects;

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  Collaborative, public-private analysis of the sector’s needs, strengths and innovation drivers.