XYLEM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT GMBH

Their core work

Xylem is a Vienna-based technology SME building software tools and decision-support systems for energy-efficient building renovation. Their core work sits at the intersection of energy performance analysis and digital building technologies — specifically developing tools that help architects, engineers, and building owners plan and execute renovations using Building Information Modeling (BIM). In the BIMERR project, they contributed to automated scan-to-BIM workflows and renovation decision support, enabling buildings to be digitally modelled from physical surveys and then assessed for energy improvement options. Their earlier SEMERGY project points to a background in computational building planning, suggesting they bring both the energy domain knowledge and the software development capability to their work.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Xylem's trajectory over their H2020 participation shows a deliberate deepening rather than a shift in domain. Their 2015 SEMERGY project — a small SME Phase 1 feasibility study — was grounded in computational building energy planning, which is essentially software-side energy analysis. By 2019, in BIMERR, that foundation had matured into full BIM-integrated renovation workflows: automated scan-to-BIM, interoperability across tools, and structured renovation decision support. The move from a solo feasibility study to a large multi-country RIA consortium also signals a shift from proof-of-concept work toward applied, deployment-ready research. The absence of early keywords for SEMERGY limits the precision of this reading, but the project title and scheme confirm the energy-buildings nexus was present from the start.

Xylem is moving toward the digitalisation of the building renovation process — combining physical scanning, BIM modelling, and automated decision support — which positions them well for future work in the EU's renovation wave and digital construction agendas.

How they like to work

Xylem has played both roles — consortium leader in a small SME Phase 1 feasibility project and a participant in a larger multi-partner RIA. Their single large collaboration (BIMERR) involved 20 partners across 10 countries, suggesting they are comfortable operating inside complex international consortia rather than exclusively in tight, bilateral arrangements. As a small company that joined a technically demanding BIM project, they likely occupy a focused specialist role rather than a coordination or administrative one — contributing specific tools or methodologies rather than managing the whole programme.

Despite only two projects, Xylem has connected with 20 unique consortium partners across 10 countries — almost entirely through the BIMERR consortium, which was a broad European partnership. Their network is geographically diverse for a two-project SME, spanning at minimum multiple EU member states in the building technology and energy research space.

What sets them apart

Xylem occupies a narrow but valuable niche: software and decision-support tooling for building energy renovation, grounded in BIM and digital workflows. In a landscape dominated by large engineering firms and academic groups, a specialist SME with hands-on tool development experience and the agility to enter both SME feasibility grants and large RIA consortia offers a different risk profile and speed of execution. For consortia building renovation-focused Horizon Europe proposals, they bring a combination of energy domain expertise and applied software development that is harder to find in a single partner than either skill alone.

Highlights from their portfolio

• BIMERR
  Their largest project by far (€710,488 EC funding, 2019–2022), BIMERR brought together 20 partners to develop BIM-based tools for energy-driven renovation of residential buildings — a flagship project for the EU's building renovation agenda and the source of all of Xylem's detailed technical keywords.
• SEMERGY
  As coordinator of this SME Phase 1 feasibility study in 2015, Xylem demonstrated enough of a validated concept in energy-efficient building planning to secure EU recognition — the starting point of their H2020 track record and their only leadership role.