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Sustainable Education in Nuclear Science and Technology
Closed for proposals
Project Type
Project Code
L53003CRP
2128Approved Date
Status
Start Date
Expected End Date
Completed Date
5 November 2019Description
The main objective of the CRP is to conduct research projects to understand the current status of nuclear education, and recommend best practices for improving efficiency and effectiveness. The research scope will include the investigation of new and emerging practices and the assessment and analysis of status and tendencies in different countries and regions. It will mainly focus on:
• The impact of further adopting information and communication technologies on the advancement of nuclear education;
• Cooperation and collaboration approaches and formats between industry, universities and government, and among countries and regions (e.g. networking and resource sharing mechanisms);
• Outreach best practices applied by academia to address schools and society;
• Demographics and gender in nuclear education (including supply and demand issues);
• Benchmarking and assessment of/in nuclear education;
• Challenges and experience in ‘nuclearization’ of non-nuclear engineers and scientists, and
• Competency mapping, knowledge domains, and taxonomy in nuclear education.
The proposed period for the CRP is four years: 2015–2018. More information and updates will be posted at the following link: http://www.iaea.org/nuclearenergy/nuclearknowledge/
Objectives
To provide Member States' organizations involved in nuclear education and training with relevant and validated information, which will support them in advancing nuclear education. The knowledge obtained from the CRP should contribute to improve sustainability and quality of the teaching / learning process, and foster effectiveness and efficiency through increased cooperation and adoption of innovative practices.
Specific objectives
To develop a set of benchmarking approaches for nuclear education
To map nuclear competences in and for nuclear education
To understand and analyse demographics and gender situation in nuclear education ( including supply and demand issues)
To collect experience and methods of addressing challenges in “nuclearization” of non-nuclear engineers and scientists
To formulate main principles for cooperation and collaboration approaches and formats between industry, universities and government, and among countries and regions (e.g. networking and resource sharing mechanisms)
To collect outreach best practices applied by academia to address schools and society
To understand the impact of adopting modern information and computer technologies in nuclear education
Impact
Analyses promoting self-assessment in various aspects of the educational system in individual MSs were initiated and concrete initiatives were undertaken, e.g. to:
- strengthen collaboration among stakeholders in nuclear education,
- to promote and assess innovative learning approaches, such as blended modalities for distance learning
- to enhance the understanding and interest in nuclear science and technology in wide communities of trainers and students through outreach.
Although the work conducted does not afford novel aspects or original research findings, it is deemed that many of the activities launched within the scope of this project have already granted and still promise tangible results in various ambits of nuclear education (as noted within the assessment related to individual outputs).
The CRP has certainly provided an opportunity to build further synergies and cross-collaboration within and beyond CRP participants, also across national stakeholders that CSIs engaged within the scope of their respective activities.
Relevance
The CRP framing envisaged very broad scope and objectives, encompassing a diverse range of topics, including 7 separate research threads across which were scattered only a few CRP projects (13 in total). Although this presented distinctive challenges in the development of the CRP activities, at the same time it provided many different leads to existing activities conducted within IAEA NKM Section and including, e.g. the ongoing development and application of benchmarking and peer-review services (KMAVs for universities), collaboration frameworks like ECAP and regional educational networks, and outreach initiatives and catalogues (including towards 4 to 14y olds), among others.