REGAL Leonardo (2001)

Leonardo da Vinci - Community Vocational Training Action Programme

Financed by the European Union within the Community Leonardo da Vinci Programme and in cooperation with: CILI - Cambridge International Land Institute, RICS - The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

The project involved an international community of Real Estate Evaluation professors and researchers and provided them training with distance learning tools. The role of VIU, partner of the project, was to provide:

• multimedia documents, training methodologies and case studies in Distance Learning under the scientific supervision of the Istituto University of Architecture of Venice - Urbanistic Department;

• structures for workshops and international meetings.

This proposal arose from the experience of training needs undertaken by the professional organisations. The project tried to develop ICT methods for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for professionals working in the Real Estate Sector. The training market is very large across Europe - in the UK alone the Royal Society of Chartered Surveyors has a membership of around 80,000.

The project addressed the following training issues:

-  Members of the professional organizations are often geographically and professionally isolated, with limited opportunities for experience and poor access to quality postgraduate professional training and support. This has resulted in most EU countries, to an unequal provision for continuing professional development;

-  Individuals need to be able to continuously upgrade their skills and knowledge necessary for business creation, growth and individual success, and to meet rising professional quality control standards;

-  Early and mid-career professionals find it difficult to take time away from work (and family) in order to acquire such new knowledge and skills (this is not uncommon in a number of professions);

-  These skills and knowledge have to be deployed increasingly working with other professionals in a context driven by the development of the European single market; electronic commerce and e busines;

-  Within the profession there is a considerable knowledge and skills base which is difficult to access by many of the practising members, particularly at a European level.

The project developed, at a European level, an ICT based Corporate Professional Knowledge Base and Corporate Professional Knowledge Network to support online on-the-job distance Postgraduate level Continuing Professional Development for Real Estate professionals.

Lead Patner: RICS - The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors