Nuclear Skills Winter School

Skills and competences in nuclear are high on the agenda for the new Commission and are falling under the nine JRC priorities 2025–2027, specifically under “EU Competitiveness and Innovation.” Throughout the last years a renewed interest in nuclear technologies became apparent. In light of the geopolitical situation, EU autonomy in various fields is considered a priority, for example, in energy and health. 

Meanwhile, in the nuclear field, a skills gap is expected. Already in 2020, 85% of nuclear experts were foreseen to be over 50 years old. This potential loss of knowledge due to the combined effect of staff aging and the low attractiveness of studying nuclear subjects in the last decades could hinder EU innovation and competitiveness. For member states, it is a challenge to attract students and build the future workforce required to retain the expertise in the nuclear field due to the lack of visibility of the variety of nuclear careers and the specificity of the skills involved. 

What if we could gather new audiences for a recurring event and showcase to them our expertise and opportunities in a nuclear career? 

To do this, we propose a 6-day winter school at the JRC, organised in collaboration with KIT.

Why is it new 

Looking at offers for “nuclear schools” available, we realised that important thematic areas of JRC’s Directorate G are barely represented in these offers, specifically in the fields of nuclear safety research and support to standardisation, nuclear science applications, nuclear research infrastructures, and interfacing science and policy. 

With this initiative, we want to attract 40 students (BSc/MSc) per year. 

Our final aim is to duplicate this initiative in other JRC sites with the first module adapted to the site-specific research highlights and regional partners. 

Agenda

In the first module, we aim at showcasing general features in nuclear science and innovative activities undertaken by the JRC and the other involved MS institutions in nuclear topics, using in particular JRC’s unique research infrastructure, so that the students can get an overview of their possible future careers in research.

Then in the second module, we will focus on roles for scientists in the interrelation between science and policy to highlight a second playing field of researchers beyond laboratory work. As an example, JRC’s role and work can be presented while leaving room for some interactive role-plays for the students raising awareness of the different perspectives and needs of policy and science. That is why we plan to propose the first edition of the winter school at JRC Karlsruhe as a back-to-back event to the planned visit of members of the European Parliament and other EU institutions. 

The participants will also have the opportunity to work on a project of their own that they will present at the end of the school, because we want to promote collaboration and networking between them and with the nuclear experts. 

Lecturers are invited from internationally leading institutions and industry. The school format encourages informal discussions and the exchange of knowledge between lecturers and participants.

Organisation

The Nuclear Skills Winter School is co-organised by:

•Joint Research Centre - Karlsruhe

•Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - Institute for Nuclear Waste Disposal