Abstract
The Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD) introduced the requirement for all Member States to include the concept of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) in their national plans. However, this challenge requires upgrading professional skills in NZEB concepts and strategies, thus guaranteeing the maximum impact on NZEB deployment around Europe. This is the objective of MEnS (“Meeting Energy Professional Skills”), an H2020 project focused on providing high quality upskilling and education to architects, engineers, and building professionals. The role of women in the NZEB industry indicates that female participation in the building industry is still low. The need to rebalance this gender gap is highlighted in this work through the identification of female programs and schemes. In addition, the results of women’s participation in the MEnS project is analyzed. The MEns project created and implemented a new education program, training 1200 building managers (engineers and architects) in the designand construction of NZEBs, out of which 46% were women. Focusing on the Spanish case, 18 interviews were randomly conducted with women participants in order to assess the courses and their expectations of employment in the NZEB framework. The method used for the analysis was a semi-structured interview and analysis by the grounded theory. This article describes the participation of women in this educational program and analyses initial conclusions and lessons learnt from this initiative in 10 European countries, including Spain.
Highlights
In Architecture and Engineering studies, the presence and involvement of females rapidly evolved in the Spanish universities and marketplace from 1960s to the 1990s
This is the case in some experimental sciences and engineering areas, where women represent less than 30% of the workforce
Training professionals in Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) strategies and technologies was the EQF level 7 educational programs’ main goal in order to accelerate the adaptation of the Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD) of the EU, which implies that all the buildings constructed after the 31st December 2020 will be Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs).This date was advanced to 2018in the case of public buildings
Summary
In Architecture and Engineering studies, the presence and involvement of females rapidly evolved in the Spanish universities and marketplace from 1960s to the 1990s. There are specific areas that are still resistant to female participation, even though the bulk of university alumni are women. This is the case in some experimental sciences and engineering areas, where women represent less than 30% of the workforce. In the 2003/04 course, only 28.1% of the students in the Spanish technical curricula were females at the university level, this has increased in the last five years, and currently almost 33% of graduates are women. Female presence in engineering careers is approximately one third, the rate of abandonment before graduation is higher among men than among women
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