European Nuclear Skills Initiative

Overview

Objectives

Pojects will prepare a strategy to identify and quantify nuclear skills shortages across the EU, drawing on approaches from different industries (such as the MATCH programme), the European Human Resources Observatory for the Nuclear Sector (EHRO-N) and Member States, in particular building upon the work already initiated in job taxonomy and national workforce assessments under EHRO-N. Overall, the proposed strategy should contribute to maintaining the highest levels of nuclear safety and radiation protection. Achieving this objective requires the strategy to also cover aspects relevant to the recently established SMR Industrial Alliance.

Activities/actions supported

The initiative’s strategy and multi-annual action plan should consider increasing activities across sectors and Member States, collaboration and transnational mobility and vocational training programmes and should identify the reskilling and upskilling needs of job holders in the sector (identification, validation and certification of skills), including access to nuclear research facilities. Additionally, the strategy should identify ways to promote nuclear and radiation protection careers and job paths among young people and with teachers, instructors and professors. At the same time, it should improve diversity, inclusion and gender representation in the nuclear sector (fission and fusion), including by sustaining in its current form the existing European Masters in the nuclear and engineering field (i.e. organised and delivered by academics in at least three Member States).

Anticipated outcomes

The project results are expected to contribute to establishment of a long-term, industry-, research- and training-led European initiative to address workforce and skill shortages in nuclear fission and fusion at EU-level, for ensuring safe use of current and future nuclear technologies (including SMRs), and to strengthen capacity-building for nuclear safety, waste management, decommissioning and radiation protection (including medical applications). Projects should also design and test a strategy to attract new people to the EU’s nuclear and radiation protection workforce and train and retain this workforce to acquire the necessary skills with a focus on cross-sector and EU-wide mobility, skills transferability and digital skills while promoting diversity, inclusion and gender balance.

Institution providing the funding

European Commission

Size of funding

Up to EUR 1 500 000

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific text of the call. Additionally, to be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in the Member States of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States, or countries associated to the European Programme.

Overview of award criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the excellence, impact and quality and efficiency of the implementation of:

1. Research and innovation actions (RIA) and Innovation actions (IA)
2. Coordination and support actions (CSA)
3. Programme co-fund actions (CoFund).

For full applications, each criterion (excellence, impact, quality and efficiency) will be scored out of 5. The threshold for individual criteria will be 3. The overall threshold, applying to the sum of the three individual scores, will be 10.

Procedures

Application procedures

All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funders & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section).

Application support available

For help related to this call, please contact: RTD-EURATOMec [dot] europa [dot] eu (RTD-EURATOM[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

Useful links

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info