WITS INSTITUTE SL

Their core work

WITS INSTITUTE SL, operating under the trade name BIM Academy, is a Barcelona-based private training company specializing in professional skills development for the construction sector, with a focus on energy efficiency and sustainable building practices. Their EU project work sits within Coordination and Support Actions — meaning they contribute not as researchers but as curriculum designers, training practitioners, and skills framework developers. Both their H2020 projects addressed the same practical gap: construction workers and professionals in Europe lack the certified competencies needed to deliver energy-efficient buildings at scale. They bring hands-on training delivery experience and knowledge of vocational qualification systems to international consortia tackling this workforce challenge.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both projects fall within the same narrow domain — energy efficiency skills in construction — so a dramatic pivot is not visible. That said, the framing shifted between the two projects: TRAINEE (2018-2020) emphasized aligning training supply with market demand, while SEEtheSkills (2021-2024) moved toward recognition and validation of skills already in the workforce. This suggests a maturing approach: first building the training, then formalizing how those competencies are acknowledged and certified across Europe. No keyword metadata was available in the source data to confirm this reading, so it rests on project title analysis alone.

They appear to be deepening their focus on formal skills recognition — moving from delivering training to shaping the qualification and validation infrastructure that gives those skills currency in the European labour market.

How they like to work

WITS INSTITUTE SL has never led an H2020 project — they have participated exclusively as a consortium partner in both projects. With 11 unique partners across just 2 projects, they work in medium-sized consortia of roughly five to six organizations per project. Their consistent participant role and specialist domain (training and skills) suggest they are brought into projects for a defined contribution rather than driving the project agenda — a reliable specialist partner rather than a project architect.

11 unique consortium partners across 5 countries in 2 projects, averaging roughly 5-6 partners per project. Their European network is modest in size but consistent with the CSA funding type, which typically involves smaller, coordinated consortia rather than large research networks.

What sets them apart

Among Spanish SMEs in the energy sector, WITS INSTITUTE SL occupies an unusual niche: they are not an energy technology company but a training provider, making them valuable to consortia that need pedagogical and workforce development expertise rather than engineering or R&D capacity. Their trade name BIM Academy points to specialization in Building Information Modeling training, which places them at the intersection of digital construction tools and energy performance — a combination that is increasingly relevant as the EU pushes building renovation at scale. For a project coordinator building a consortium around skills, certification, or workforce readiness in sustainable construction, they offer a ready-made partner with proven EU project experience in exactly that space.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TRAINEE
  Their first H2020 project and largest single award (EUR 100,350), establishing their EU credentials in market-oriented energy efficiency skills for the construction workforce.
• SEEtheSkills
  Their most recent project (running to 2024) focused on the harder problem of making informal construction energy skills formally visible and validated — a policy-relevant challenge across EU member states.