European Nuclear Society in action

The European Nuclear Society (ENS) is the largest learned society for nuclear science, technology and industry in Europe. It reaches out to over 20,000 nuclear professionals in 22 countries in Europe, as well as in Israel. Nuclear education and training is a key issue for ENS members.

The nuclear sector is pulling out all the stops to meet one of the major challenges that it currently faces – to deliver optimal skills and provide top-quality experience for professionals at all levels in the nuclear industry. Several education and training programmes have been set up to maintain the current nuclear knowledge bank and to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of suitably qualified employees to sustain the industry in the future.

Education at university level, which is very resource intensive and requires long-term planning, has been a major focus in recent years. New courses have been designed and a lot of effort has been made to increase the quality and complementarity of existing courses. A range of educational networks has been established at both a national and European level.

At the same time, the nuclear industry has assumed responsibility for developing and increasing its own educational and training capabilities. In addition to in-house training programmes, it offers others based on collaborative ventures with educational institutions. These allow for a combination of on-the-job training and periods of study for employees.

The European Nuclear Society’s Education and Training Platform

The exchange of experience and expertise, the sharing of capabilities and resources and networking between stakeholders are all crucial to the development of an efficient education and training offer – one that is geared to providing the highly-skilled workforce that a dynamic and fast-evolving industry demands.

With that in mind, ENS established the Education and Training (E&T) Platform. It provides an overview of currently available university courses, as well as training and education programmes offered by industry and other institutions. The E&T Platform places special emphasis on collaboration between stakeholders, on the sharing of available infrastructure and resources and on the promotion of existing networks.

The Platform is closely linked to ENS’ biannual conference on education and training, NESTet, and will continue to evolve thanks to the input it receives from the conference. Another significant contribution to the Platform is made by ENS’ members in 23 countries and by its 60-strong corporate membership.

Additionally, ENS is enlarging its scope for co-operation with the European Human Resources Observatory for the Nuclear Energy Sector (EHRO-N), in order to create and maintain an up-to-date databank of information about education and training opportunities.

In the near future the Platform, with support of Young Generation Network (YGN), will design a “Career Opportunities” portal, where young highly-qualified professionals will be able to upload their curriculum vitae. This will, in turn, give ENS corporate members the opportunity to identify and recruit top quality nuclear employees.