Education and collaboration to realize connected city, sector, and society (4S).

Research Project, 2024 – 2027

Society is facing an energy and climate transition where sustainable installations play a key role. It is the installers who create the conditions for a modern, climate-smart, and sustainable Sweden. By using building automation, which is based on knowledge and technology from several subject areas, there is a great potential for energy efficiency in our built environment. Building automation also forms the basis for energy communities, which in turn are clusters of properties that produce, store, and share energy in a local network. Together with transport infrastructure, energy communities and industrial activities form parts of what we have chosen to call a connected city, sector, and society. Building automation is thus a prerequisite for creating more energy-efficient, self-sustaining, and thereby less vulnerable communities. The present project builds on a previous study about the knowledge needs of the members of the Installers' Association at the higher education level to be able to develop their business and customer offerings to meet customer expectations and drive development in the energy and climate area. The members have identified that the property is an important part of the energy system and want to develop knowledge and business models for products and services within Building Automation. Through this development, the members see that they will take a different role in community building, that of the main contractor. The purpose of the project is to work to meet the members' expressed knowledge needs to take on a new market role. Through the project's work, courses for professionals at the higher education level, equivalent to 15 university credits, related to the areas of Building Automation and Sustainable Development, are created. The courses are adapted to the members' expressed knowledge needs. Within the framework of the project, the work to stimulate development and innovation in the participating organizations will lead to an increased pace in the organizations' change work for market adaptation. Collaboration within the industry and with the participating universities is strengthened. Another effect of the project's work is that conditions are shaped for lifelong learning and the Installer's new role in community building.