Strategically, the construction sector is one of the key industries in Europe, providing all other sectors of the economy with buildings and infrastructure and employing more than 16.4 million people in the EU. Moreover, the construction industry has a huge influence on Europe’s environmental development, taking into account that 40 % of the EU’s energy consumption stems from the construction sector and that 25 % of transported material is linked to the sector’s activities.

The last one and a half decade, analyses and reports – both on European and on national level - have addressed the many complex challenges the European construction sector is facing and will be facing in the near future. Moreover, they have focussed on how to meet these challenges. The message is clear: to meet the challenges, there is a need for more and better managerial and leadership skills among (potential) leaders in the construction sector.
The picture above is recognisable in the Oslo-Goteborg-Copenhagen region. This region, situated in the Øresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak area, counts 9 million inhabitants and will be facing explosive growth in the near future. There will be a huge need for more and better buildings and infrastructure but due to the lack of skilled construction leaders and due to the lack of mobility between employees in the region, the construction sector might not be able to meet the demands of the region.

The problem can be formulated as follows:

• (Potential) leaders on all levels in the construction sector lack managerial and leadership skills to turn the construction sector into a more efficient and productive sector.
• (Potential) leaders on all levels in the construction sector lack knowledge about what their skills are worth in other countries. Harmonisation of skills and educations within the sector is necessary to motivate mobility between working places and educational institutions.
  

The eight educational institutions in this project have decided to address the abovementioned problems in a 3 year lasting project (January 2011 – December 2013) which has the following goals:

• To increase the number of leaders with longer and better educations, which meet the demands of today
• To improve- through cooperation and harmonisation of skills - the mobility of those persons who already work some construction leaders as well as of those who plan to become leaders within the construction sector.
  

To meet the goals of the project, the project will combine the following two main activities:

• To develop and establish a permanent interregional network existing of educational institutions, companies, the construction associations and other relevant actors in the region;
• To establish a virtual platform, where relevant information about how to improve managerial and leadership skills within the construction sector is gathered and organised and where working groups constantly address new challenges and develop new activities within themes that are relevant for the construction sector (eg. Environmental issues, multi-culturalism, etc.)

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