Our Partnerships with Universities
We believe and invest in young people, and in their professional training, both in Italy and abroad
Webuild's partnerships with the most prestigious Italian and international universities lay the foundations for the training and attraction of talented profiles, in the early stages of their careers, and for developing the next generation of Tomorrow's Builders, which will become the driving force of the our Group in the future.
Through strategic agreements with a focus on the new generations, we collaborate with universities in Italy, and in the world, to launch training programmes, scholarships and talent attraction for young students: activities aimed at professional orientation, the selection of talented profiles, their inclusion in construction sites in all the countries where the Group works, tutoring them in career paths in the construction sector.
In 2024, academic collaborations continued with over 30 universities, and preventive recruiting activities were undertaken as a strategic lever to promote major infrastructure projects as opportunities for employment and a guarantee of a professional future for new generations.
What’s the best thing that a company can do today? Invest in the future, nurture the next generation, invest in universities and, most of all, do it together. This is the new model to adopt to contribute to making Italy ever more competitive in the world.
Webuild and Italian Universities
Webuild collaborates with the most important Italian universities to develop synergies and partnerships aimed at orienting and bringing young people closer to the work arena. To date, the Group collaborates with more than 15 universities with which it has launched employer branding and attraction initiatives for new talents.
The strategic partnership with Rome’s Sapienza University, signed in September 2022, allows the Group to put its experience and know how at the service for increasing the employability of students, while concomitantly elaborating, with the same University, strategies and solutions to promote a meeting of the demand and offer of qualified work.
This collaboration has found a concrete reality through the participation of job orientation initiatives and events that are useful for developing graduating students, with Webuild’s contribution within the official Consultation Office of Sapienza University. The entity, made of a selection of leading companies and by the University’s managerial staff, aims at defining the common guidelines and projects with regard to placement-recruitment themes, needs analysis and the assessment of the services supplied to the University.
The framework agreement with the University of Genoa, signed in June 2022, establishes the mutual commitment to promote and carry out research of common interest in the production sectors to which we both belong. Part of the agreement is dedicated to contributing to the training of qualified resources in civil and environmental engineering disciplines, architecture, mechanical, management and transport engineering, and the creation of research labs.
The joint research laboratory UniWeLab, born in 2021 (the year in which the first Uniwelab Hackathon took place, a competition of ideas to identify innovative, creative, and intelligent proposals for the future of Genoa) is active in the development of innovative ideas to promote sustainable mobility, was conceived from this agreement. The relationship between universities and companies to produce innovation together, and create value for the territory is the basis of this partnership, which enriches both and is precious for the city of Genoa. In 2024 partnership with Genoa University was renewed for another three years, including a course on “Project Management of Large Sustainable Infrastructure”.
UniWeLab: Webuild's research lab and the University of Genoa
UniWeLab is the new research lab and model of open innovation resulting from the collaboration between Webuild and the University of Genoa. The Lab is the concrete symbol of teamwork between a university and a company, whose mission is the applied scientific research and higher education in the sustainable mobility sector.
UniWeLab: Webuild's research lab and the University of Genoa
Webuild and International Universities
Over the last few years, we consolidated strategic agreements with the most prestigious international universities, and strengthened our collaboration for training and for attracting talented young people, globally.
Our partnerships with Australian universities
In 2024, in addition to the continuation of partnerships with universities, 11 scholarships have been awarded, including: 6 scholarships through Australian universities in the states of New South Wales and Victoria; and 5 scholarships awarded directly to Clough employees who have met their semester objectives.
In 2024, the following initiatives were also developed: the Girls+ Engineering Tomorrow Program (GET), conducted in collaboration with Curtin University, is an outreach initiative aimed at increasing the visibility of engineering among girls and non-binary students, supporting their journey towards STEM subjects and university studies in engineering; and the Engineering Your Career program, implemented with the University of Western Australia, is an initiative designed to help Early Career Engineers familiarize themselves with the profession.
In Sydney, we continue our collaboration, which began in 2018, with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia's first university for young people studying scientific-related topics. A wide-ranging partnership that has seen the development of various kinds of programmes and initiatives: from "Webuild Tomorrow's Builders 2020" corporate scholarship programme, for the most deserving engineering students, to the university project to support the academic and professional training of female engineers called "Women in Engineering and IT program", reaching training initiatives like our short-training tunnelling course. In 2024 the partnership included development and provision of content for the postgraduate major in Tunnelling and Underground Engineering program.
The partnership with the Melbourne School of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia's best university by academic reputation, according to the QS World University Rankings 2020, which places it 15th, globally, started in September 2020. The collaboration focuses on a five-year agreement that includes the provision of a "Webuild Master of Civil Engineering" scholarship, provided to students who want to specialize in civil engineering, and a "Webuild Women into Engineering" scholarship, to continue to attract and support women who wish to study engineering subjects. The collaboration allows the Group to join the academic network, to participate in major university events, university recruitment and training initiatives, and to organize dedicated selection and career guidance campaigns.
In 2024, the Risk Management in Construction course was offered to engineering students.
Our partnerships with universities in the United States. In 2024
Lane, a company of the Webuild Group, has strengthened partnerships with 11 key universities across 8 states in the United States to enhance its presence in the academic sector. Participation in university job fairs has facilitated the collection of over 450 applications. Additionally, mentoring has been provided to 13 students at Purdue University (which ranks as the 3rd best Civil Engineering program in the United States).
Lane has strengthened strategic relationships with national conferences that target a diverse audience at the university level, and between 2021 and 2022, participated in the conference of the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).
Our partnerships with universities in Europe
At a European level, Webuild has good continuous relationships with the ESTP University of Paris and the Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), with the aim of strengthening its collaboration with premium universities in strategic geographies for the Group, therefore contributing to creating a new generation of professionals in a multicultural working environment.
In France, Webuild returned to attend the Forum organized by the École Spéciale des Travaux Publics (ESTP), held in Paris at the beginning of December 2021: an opportunity for companies and future engineers to meet in France, a chance that the Group seized to promote its professional offering in a rapidly expanding market like the French one. In the same year, Webuild also participated in the Job Networking Session 2021, two days of recruiting dedicated to graduating and graduated engineers holding a double degree from the Ecoles Centrale and their Italian university partners in the T.I.M.E. (Top International Managers in Engineering) network.