EURAD and the School of Radioactive Waste Management

The main goal of European Joint Programme on Radioactive Waste Management (EURAD) Work Package (WP) 13 is to establish the ‘School of Radioactive Waste Management (RWM)’. The School of RWM acts as the executive body for all training and mobility actions that are organized within EURAD. The end-users of the School of RWM are defined as professionals and potential new professionals at graduated and post-graduated levels from EU and non-EU countries (via the IAEA and NEA programmes), and in particular the next generation of experts. All the work described here will be carried out in a close interaction with the European networks having a recognized experience in training/mobility in the field of RWM.

For the training courses, a diverse portfolio of tailored basic and specialized courses will be composed. This portfolio will contain a list of existing initiatives (e.g. IAEA and NEA courses), and new training courses to bridge identified gaps. Additionally, the School of RWM will host webinars about a variety of topics that are of interest to the EURAD community (e.g. on synergies with the PREDIS project). The content of this portfolio will be linked to the EURAD Roadmap. In doing so, the School of RWM contributes to the strategic knowledge management objectives of EURAD, namely: (i) preservation of generated knowledge (in- and outside of EURAD), (ii) transfer of knowledge towards Member States and between generations and (iii) dissemination of knowledge (by organizing training courses based on identified training needs identified by the EURAD community).

The School of RWM will also organize a Mobility Programme. The intention of the EURAD Mobility Programme is to financially support both junior and senior professionals, as well as PhD students and post-docs from EURAD beneficiaries to (i) visit infrastructures from EURAD partners, (ii) undertake internships/exchange programmes between institutions within EURAD and (iii) to follow training courses (life-long learning) in the field of RWM (this type is planned to be introduced in the later stages of the programme). These activities should serve competence development for the trainees and collaboration between all members of the EURAD community. They can be complementary to the training courses and/or part of a Continuous Personal Development (CPD) programme.

Finally, the School of RWM will also support the EURAD PhD community by providing them with a dedicated section on its website where the PhD students can find information on their fellow PhD students, as well as an overview of events that might be of interest to them and a list of publications by EURAD PhD students.