BIM Innovation Capability Programme of Ireland

The Irish Government has requested that Enterprise Ireland, an organisation responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets to actively promote the use of BIM in Ireland. This promotion has taken the form of an opportunity for Enterprise Ireland clients to apply for a grant under their BIM Enable and BIM Implementation schemes and also through their funding of the BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP) of Ireland. The BICP is a two-year project (2016-2018) which seeks to capture the capability of the Irish Construction Industry and the Higher Education Institutes to respond to the increased requirement for BIM in Ireland. One of the primary responsibilities of the BICP research team is to collate data to assist the Irish National BIM Council (NBC) in the formulation of a National BIM Roadmap. To achieve this a global and local BIM study was undertaken in 2016. This involved extensive desk-top based research exploring the value proposition behind what governments and professional bodies are doing to advance BIM in their respective countries. The research identified a number of common themes or pillars that Ireland will need to further address before a roadmap is formally disseminated. After exploration of these pillars, within an Irish context, it was found that despite a lack of standards and contractual frameworks, it has not prevented the industry from deploying BIM on Irish projects