European Nuclear Skills Initiative – towards European Nuclear Skills Academy

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to complement and expand the outcomes of HORIZON-EURATOM-2024-NRT-01-02 by contributing to the following: Design and implement an action for establishing a European Nuclear Skills Academy, unifying the strategic direction and promoting standardised curricula across all qualification levels (from vocational to academic), thereby contributing to a more coordinated, EU-wide response to the skills shortage. The project will include a demonstration of recognition of learning outcomes and/or acquired skills between organisations in different Member States. Launch targeted training programmes, building on existing ones, specifically for critical areas such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and advanced reactors. This includes building specialised expertise within national regulatory authorities for independent safety assessment of facilities and design concepts, enabling rigorous, efficient licensing, and ensuring rapid deployment and the highest safety standards. Complement existing mobility schemes with targeted actions for the most critical professions, tailored to regulatory and industry needs, generating evidence and good practices that can feed into future, larger-scale mobility and skills initiatives. The European Nuclear Skills Academy should serve as preparation and as a basis for the possible Net Zero Industry Academy, and for other future related initiatives that may follow the review announced in the Communication on the Union for Skills. Scope: This topic builds upon the Skills for Nuclear action and contributes to the expected outcomes specified in topic HORIZON-EURATOM-2024-NRT-01-02. The demand for workers is increasing across all levels and sub-sectors of the nuclear ecosystem – construction workers, technicians, nuclear engineers and scientists, skilled power plant operators, nuclear-aware generalists, and regulatory staff to assess and license new projects. The recent policy documents, in particular the Communication on the Nuclear Illustrative Programme PINC ( [1] ), the Net Zero Industry Act ( [2] ), and the Draghi report ( [3] ), underline the need for EU action on nuclear skills. These documents emphasise that delivering Member States’ plans for lifetime extensions and new nuclear build-up to 2050 will require substantial investments and a rapid strengthening of nuclear skills and regulatory staffing across the EU to safely implement nuclear plans. This, combined with long lead times to train highly specialised nuclear professionals and regulators, makes early, coordinated EU action on nuclear…