BGE's activities for a sustainable education in nuclear waste management in Germany

Since its foundation in 2017 the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE) is responsible for implementing and performing the site selection procedure in Germany. While the site selection is expected to be completed before the middle of this century, the construction and operation of the deep geological repository will take several decades more, until the repository can be finally sealed. This long-lasting and complex project requires a substantial amount of work force from very different disciplines. It is not always guaranteed that the experts needed will be available. In Germany, the shortage of skilled workers is today an important topic with respect to the economic power. This motivated the BGE from the beginning to establish close collaborations with different universities. These cooperations involve mainly the support in lecturing and the joint supervision of Master’s and Bachelor’s theses but also dissertations. Numerous students and PhD researchers have been successfully trained within the last years. The topics cover various areas of geoscience, engineering, material science, political and social science and several more.

By today, formal cooperation-contracts exist with the Technische Universität Clausthal, RWTH Aachen, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg and Leibniz Universität Hannover. However, this is not exclusive; the BGE would welcome it to sign additional cooperation agreements with other interested universities in the future.

BGE’s activities with respect to a sustainable strategy towards the availability of experts in nuclear waste management will be shown based on several examples.