BIM concepts integration in academic education: a cross-section analysis

Building information modelling (BIM) has progressively transformed professional practice in building design, landscape analysis, and spatial planning. As architectural and engineering firms have widely embraced BIM over the past two decades, higher education institutions have been pushed to rethink curricula to train future specialists accordingly. Agricultural Sciences, however, represent a discipline where this transition remains largely unexplored, despite its direct relevance to rural building design and agroforestry territory management. This paper presents a cross-sectional analysis of the attitudes and readiness toward BIM integration among Italian university departments of Agricultural Sciences. Data were collected through questionnaires completed by professors affiliated with the scientific sector AGRI-04/C (Rural Buildings and Agro-Forest Land Planning), covering individual familiarity with BIM, perceived curricular relevance, and institutional support for educational innovation. The findings reveal a situation broadly comparable to that of emerging countries in the early stages of BIM adoption: widespread enthusiasm among individual academics is rarely matched by institutional commitment, specialized awareness, or concrete implementation strategies.