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Advanced Networking for Nuclear Education and Training and Transfer of Expertise

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ANNETTE (Advanced Networking for Nuclear Education and Training and Transfer of Expertise)

Período documentado: 2019-01-01 hasta 2019-12-31

The ANNETTE Project has the main objective to set up major coordination of nuclear Education and Training (E&T) in Europe, with a long-lasting impact through a sustainable structure of courses delivered by different course providers.

It is worth noting that “the present situation of nuclear energy in Europe asks for a continuing effort in the field of Education and Training aimed to assure a qualified workforce in the next decades. In this scenario, ANNETTE is aimed at enhancing and networking the Europe-wide efforts initiated in the past decades by different organisations belonging to academia, research centres and industry to maintain and develop Education and Training in the nuclear fields. This will allow consolidating, developing and better exploiting the achievements already reached in the past and to tackle the present challenges in preparing the European workforce in the nuclear fields.”

What are the needs for a green society: to operate and maintain the existing nuclear reactors in Europe, to plan for the renewal of their fleet to assure a continuing and safe carbon-free electricity production and maintaining competitiveness in the nuclear sector in Europe by a well-educated workforce, nuclear experts, nuclearised specialists in different disciplines and nuclear aware personnel. ANNETTE, as a project coordinated by the European Nuclear Education Network (www.enen.eu) is sharing with the Association the mission to contribute to maintaining and developing high-level competences in the nuclear fields, in Europe.

During its development and implementation, the project started by improving the way courses were delivered and moved the traditional face-to-face teaching to blended and even fully online courses or modules. New textbooks and multimedia outputs were provided, along with organising and ensuring the cross-border mobility of nuclear professionals. The development of new courses and ways of providing the information to recipients required a well-established procedure to ensure a high standard and efficiency of the method used. Thus procedures were set in place and were accompanied by pilot courses to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed methods. A set of summer Schools were also provided taken into account the availability of certain persons during only the summer period. Also, a new concept of a Modular Master Program was introduced that took into account the high specialisation of professors from different Universities and by combining these resources a higher output with respect to acquired knowledge was provided to attendees. Another innovative approach was the running of a cross-border, cross-company exchange of personnel aiming at improving and exchange of experience. The action aimed at combining the increase in the company (companies) employees education and training level with the principles of ECVET learning. As an example, the running of a first Course on Human-Technology-Organisation/Human Factors for Nuclear Safety including Virtual Reality Resources as part of Safety Culture.
Another important outcome of the project is the designing of three Fusion specific courses, to be delivered in different formats: in presence, by use of a Summer School and by e-learning.
"Inter alia, the following actions were carried out based on 3 periods:

I)
•Broad inquiry among institutions involved in nuclear Education and Training (E&T) in Europe, about the needs for the delivery of specific courses and for setting up advanced networking. Contacting the national nuclear networks (WP1)
•Collecting “Learning Outcomes (LOs)” of courses and submitting the collected course description and LOs to the judgement of the Stakeholders belonging to the Advisory Board and to the End-User Group of ANNETTE. Elaborating the received feedback from Stakeholders, from desk research and from the performed inquiries (WP2).
•Feedback from the experience of NUSHARE project (WP5).
•Inquiry with Stakeholders about the needs for E&T in the “nuclearisation” of fusion (WP6).
•Modernisation of course delivery by e-learning (WP2, WP5 and WP6).
•Starting to plan the production of textbooks and multimedia (WP3).
•Coping with the issues in organising cross-border mobility of nuclear professionals following ECVET principles and rules (WP4).
•Keeping tight contacts with platforms and Stakeholders (WP7) and managing the whole project (WP8).

II)
•Evaluation of networking mechanisms and drawing conclusions(WP1).
•Advancements on the concept of communication and possible teaching material repository(WP1).
•Investigating the reasons for the non-uniform distribution of EMSNE Alumni among ENEN Members(WP1).
•Undertaking the study of the different existing PhD Events, in order to propose possibly unified initiatives(WP1).
•Considering the possible proposals of certifications in nuclear disciplines(WP1).
•Defining the desirable and possible procedures to be established for evaluating the quality of E&T efforts(WP1).
•Preparation of pilot courses to be delivered from June 2018 to July 2019(WP2).
•Plan of courses and the pages of description of courses on the ENEN Website(WP2).
•Presenting the concept of a “master” made of modular courses delivered by different Course Providers and achieved “incrementally”(WP2).
•Webpage for collecting the expressions of interest for participation in courses(WP2).
•Planning and delivering a Summer School(WP2, WP5, WP6).
•Starting delivering the courses from June 2018(WP2, WP5, WP6).
•Selecting and starting preparing educational material(WP3).
•Preparing a procedure for educational material assessment(WP3).
•Completing the preparation and running a cross-border, cross-company exchange of personnel coherently the ECVET principles(WP4).
•Identifying issues of the applications of ECVET to an industrial environment(WP4).
•Preparing and running the first Course on Human-Technology-Organisation/Human Factors for Nuclear Safety including Virtual Reality Resources as part of Safety Culture(WP5).
•MOOC on nuclear safety culture, in the form of 4 NOOCs(WP5).
•Designing three fusion specific courses, to be delivered in different formats (in presence, at the Summer School, by e-learning)(WP6).
•Keeping in touch on several occasions with the numerous stakeholders(WP7).
•Continuous management of the project(WP8).

III)
•Addressing the Sustainable Advanced Networking in Nuclear E&T(WP1)
•Addressing the ""European certifications for E&T and VET in relevant nuclear domains""(WP1)
•New releases of courses(WP2, WP5 and WP6)
•Reports and evaluation of course delivery (WP2, WP5 and WP6)
•Issuance of a Monthly Bulletin(WP2, WP5, WP6)
•Completion of the actions in WP4
•Organisation of two events with stakeholders (WP7)
•Project management, reporting QA and closure (WP8)"
The project evolved from its foreseen purpose and produced networking even between different nuclear fields which provided stakeholders with advanced networking mechanisms and allowed ENEN to offer certifications in new nuclear disciplines. A new pan-European Master Program that integrated the former efforts of the EFTS was explored. This program’s target included also professionals involved in a CPD scheme.
The project allowed us to propose a cross-border and cross-company mobility action worth to be furtherly investigated.
We also developed integration of the “nuclearization of fusion” into the “classical” nuclear topics taught regularly, in the perspective of nuclear safety culture.