The School of Radioactive Waste Management launched its Mobility Programme in April 2020. The intention of the EURAD Mobility Programme is to financially support both junior and senior professionals, as well as PhD students from EURAD beneficiaries to visit infrastructures, undertake internships/exchange programmes between institutions which are active in radioactive waste management (RWM), follow training courses (life-long learning) in the field of RWM, and attend conferences/workshops in the field of RWM. These activities should serve competence building for the trainee and improve collaboration between EURAD beneficiaries. Mobility actions can also be seen as being complementary to training courses and/or part of a Continuous Personal Development (CPD) programme.
Since its launch, the Mobility Programme has received 72 applications, of which 47 were eligible for evaluation. The figure below shows the evolution of the number of eligible applications over the course of the four years the Mobility Programme has been running (figure 1). Of the 47 applications 43 were approved, an success rate of 91.5%!
When looking in more detail, we see that there are more men (60%) that apply compared to women (40%) (figure 2). Despite this difference, the gender balance per year is quite balanced, expect for 2022. This indicates that both men and women are actively looking for financial support from the Mobility Programme.
Finally, WP13 made an overview of the number of applications per EURAD WP and mobility type. Here, it becomes clear that most mobility actions are organised within the same work package. By comparison there are very few mobility actions between work packages. Between those two extremes, attending training courses and conferences/workshops are represented equally, representing 51% of the total number of eligible applications (figure 3).
In conclusion, the EURAD Mobility Programme has known a difficult start in 2020, but has known a steep increase in success from 2022 on. Both genders are well represented among the mobility applicants, seeing slightly more men (60%) than women (40%) applying. Most technical work packages have requested at least one mobility action since 2020. Despite this, mobility actions between work packages proof to be less popular than initially thought. Since including the opportunity to be financially supported for attending training courses, conferences, and workshops, the number of applications for these categories has quickly increased. Currently, they make up 51% of all eligible applications, which proves that there is a real need from the community to have financial support to attend these events. Finally, WP13 wants to remind all readers that the next application deadline is June 30th 2023. To apply, you can visit the online application platform.
