UNENE Case Study [Case Studies of Nuclear Education Network]

The University Network of Excellence in Nuclear Engineering – UNENE, founded in 2002, is a network of Canadian and partner international universities offering nuclear engineering, science and technology research and education programmes. Its members also include Canadian industry participants, the federal government and Canada's national nuclear science and technology institutions. With its partners and funding organizations, UNENE works to advance nuclear knowledge, build capacity and heighten visibility of Canada's strength as a global partner and to elevate the role of nuclear in advancing global sustainability, prosperity and a clean energy future. UNENE was established to address the need for a sustainable capability in post-graduate nuclear engineering education and capacity building through university research. At that time, no post-graduate nuclear engineering degree programmes were active in Canada, and no single university felt in a position to launch such a programme on their own. The main nuclear industry organizations in Canada (e.g. utilities, national laboratory, regulatory body) met to seek solutions to this and conceived the approach whereby a network of universities could team up to provide an M.Eng. programme in nuclear engineering through collective action. With the M.Eng. programme as a start, the universities and industry organizations recognized that capacity building through student experience in university research could also be developed this way and so UNENE was created involving the industry and universities, to advance high qualified personnel development through both education and research. The organizations met under the auspices of the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, which, at that time, held a national role in supporting nuclear technology, and formed UNENE as a not-for-profit partnership of industrial and university members.