The New European Bauhaus Academy: a novel skills, knowledge and innovation platform to boost sustainable construction within the built environment

The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is a policy initiative of the European Commission aiming ‘to make the built environment beautiful, sustainable and inclusive’. It has inspired a large grassroots movement: about 2,000 organisations and 500 projects are co-creating and testing new visions and practices, how local neighborhoods, communities, and the built environment at large can become more liveable, affordable, resilient, and sustainable. Through NEB, wood building materials gained a lot of interest by architects, builders and public authorities, being recognized as an aesthetic, healthy material and a decisive lever to decarbonize buildings. A significant bottleneck is the need for skilled workers and educated professionals capable of transforming the construction ecosystem towards a regenerative model. To address this gap, the NEB Academy will establish a European point of reference for knowledge, skills, and innovation in bio-based, circular, and digital solutions for the built environment, providing a full support system for practitioners by integrating different EU funding instruments. The NEBA Alliance project was tasked to set the foundation of the NEB Academy: it launched a European network of 14 organisations in education and training from 11 countries and co-designed a governance structure of 4 regional training hubs under one common umbrella. A series of pilot trainings mainly related to wood construction has been carried out. An open online sharing platform for NEBA training courses was developed, along with a quality framework based on NEB principles and criteria. Through an open call, 28 institutions from 11 other countries contributed further trainings and partnered with the hubs. The Alliance reached out to international partners in Ukraine, Japan, and Brazil. The first NEB Academy Conference in Barcelona showcased all results to a wider international audience. The NEB Academy is set to grow into a main pillar of Europe’s ambitious transformation towards a climate neutral, circular economy that is also socially just and inclusive. Enabling local actors to imagine and demonstrate that NEB can become a reality is even more important in times when the model of Europe’s open democratic societies is being pressured in a new global power confrontation. Co-funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe projects NEBA Alliance and WoodStock. Websites: European Commission NEB | Open course platform | LinkedIn