A Modular European Education and Training Concept In Nuclear and RadioCHemistry

Project Information

MEET-CINCH

Grant agreement ID: 754972

DOI

10.3030/754972

Project closed

EC signature date 31 May 2017

Start date 1 June 2017

End date 31 August 2020

Funded under

• Euratom

Total cost

€ 2 307 965,63

EU contribution

€ 2 110 051,25

Coordinated by

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ UNIVERSITAET HANNOVER
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MEET-CINCH (A Modular European Education and Training Concept In Nuclear and RadioCHemistry)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2020-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In 2010–2016, two CINCH projects were supported within Euratom FP7. They aimed at mitigating the special skill-based deficits within nuclear chemistry at master and doctorate levels and the decline of number of staff qualified in this field.
The MEET-CINCH project proactively presents the results achieved so far to the end-users, significantly contributes to attracting new talents and increasing the nuclear (chemistry) awareness. MEET-CINCH developed a MOOC – Massive Open On-line Course, and investigated the applicability of the modern Flipped (Inverted) Classroom concept in the nuclear chemistry teaching and training field.
The main objectives of MEET-CINCH are:
Extend the number of Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses developed in the previous projects and make them better available to the end-users. To reach this objective:
• the CINCH II VET Syllabus has been updated
• several new courses have been completed and brought up to the pilot level using existing tools – e.g. RoboLabs, Computers in Science exercises, CINCH Moodle course management system. Furthermore, the teaching material available from NucWik has been extended.
• a new platform – CINCH VET e-shop has been developed.

Attract new talents to the nuclear field. This has been achieved by increasing the awareness of the relevance of Nuclear and Radiochemistry (NRC) for society by:
• developing and providing a MOOC on NRC‘s importance.
• developing a teaching package aimed for use at high schools for 16-18 year-old pupils.
• establishing a Mobility Fund that facilitated participation of students and young researchers in lab courses and summer schools.

All of the actions described above were accomplished. Thus, a large number of pupils and students were introduced to the field of NRC. Students were also able to deepen their knowledge in nuclear chemistry. Through international summer schools and hands-on trainings, young talents were able to network with each other as well as with senior scientists and industrial players and gain insight into possible career options in the NRC field. A broad range of the developed learning content is available as e-learning material on the CINCH platforms. The unpredictable COVID-19 lockdown revealed that universities and educational institutions in general more than ever depend on alternative learning concepts not only to motivate students but also to guarantee the educational training at all times.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To attract new talents and increase the nuclear (chemistry) awareness, the following actions, courses and trainings were carried out during MEET-CINCH:
The MOOC for bachelor students has been launched including 11 modules composed of 152 lessons on different topics related to radiochemistry by POLIMI. The pilot run was followed by 203 participants from 20 different countries and the second run is available under: https://www.pok.polimi.it/.
A High School Teaching Package that makes use of the RoboLab on separation of Sr-90/Y-90 by chromatography was developed by NNL and tested at 5 workshops in British schools and colleges.
The MEET-CINCH consortium conducted the following hands-on trainings and schools for students and pupils, which were all fully booked:
JSI and UCY delivered a joint broad spectroscopic course “Hands-on Training on Analysis of Alpha, Beta and Gamma Emitters by Radiochemical Spectroscopic Techniques”.
CTU delivered a blended learning course on “Hands on Training in Radioanalytical Methods”.
POLIMI delivered “Hands-on Training on Chemical Dosimetry”.
LUH and UCY conducted with the help of other partners the “MEET-CINCH Spring School – High School meets University”.
All courses and additional materials are promoted at the newly developed CINCH VET e-shop that is available here: https://eshop.cinch-project.eu/ .
The NucWik and all RoboLabs were maintained and updated and new Interactive Screen Experiments (ISE) were developed to sustain and expand the offer of e-learning tools.
Four courses in flipped classroom mode (“Basic Course on Ionizing Radiation”, “Basic course on Analytical Radiochemistry”, short courses on “Chemical dosimetry for industrial and medical applications” and “Development of radiotracers”) have been developed and conducted by LUH, JSI, UH and POLIMI. The associated modular video lectures (containing more than 120 videos) are available on the CINCH Moodle platform and can be used for any kind of online learning.
LUH conducted a tailored training event for members of regulators and administrative bodies obtaining great feedback. Core of the course was based in the inspection of a virtual laboratory which is available under: https://www.cinch-project.eu/news/detail/detail/News/tailored-training-for-members-of-regulators-and-administrative-bodies/. The laboratory can be easily adapted in terms of language and standards to specific countries and used worldwide for training of regulatory representatives. In fact, the material (including the VR-lab) developed for this tailored training event has already been used outside MEET-CINCH in different speaking country. The fact that this training event has been already used in different countries shows the versatility of the program and underlines the success of this tailored made training event.
Due attention was paid to dissemination and communication activities. Evalion prepared the leaflet, the generic poster, project presentation, and the project webpage working closely with Chalmers. LUH has delivered two public reports (see https://www.cinch-project.eu/news/detail/detail/News/meet-cinch-first-public-report/) and the European Nuclear Education Network (ENEN) promoted project activities via its vast network. Moreover, the MEET-CINCH project and its activities have been presented on several conferences.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The Nuclear Awareness part of the project concentrates on the attraction of young persons to the field of nuclear and radiochemistry. To this purpose, the developed Teaching Package is important to increase young people’s interest in NRC at early stage. The MOOC is an effective tool in orienting towards NRC students already pursuing a scientific career. Some MOOC videos have been used to demonstrate to general public the societal relevance of NRC and the rather good job opportunities in this field. Although courses in flipped classroom fashion were a new experience to the vast majority of students, the feedback was positive; which indicates that this inverse way of teaching should be considered when developing new courses in the future
MEET-CINCH also promoted and eased continuous training of professionals working in the nuclear business (industry) as well as for newcomers to the field by providing trainers with innovative teaching material and methods. With industrial end-users in mind, courses were developed to minimize classroom attendance by making more use of e-learning platforms. For example, while access to real radionuclide-labs is often limited to short periods of time and demands greater effort, the virtual lab can be easily visited and used at any time.
Developing ISEs has been a major step towards sustainability and towards the possibility to allow multiple users to access the RoboLabs at the same time. Therefore, more ISEs will be developed in the follow-up project.

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