(per) ETH Zurich and EPF Lausanne in collaboration with the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) will offer a new degree course in nuclear engineering from the winter semester of 2008/09 at the latest. This was announced on 28.06.06 by Horst-Michael Prasser, ETH Professor for Nuclear Energy Systems, at the general meeting of the Forum for Nuclear Energy (1) in Bern. He said that “Education, knowledge and competence are the number one raw mater¬ials for a high-tech industry such as nuclear energy,” and warned of a shortage of nuclear energy specialists.

The new Master’s degree course which is now intended to avert this shortage lasts three semesters and covers all the relevant specialist fields in nuclear energy, from geology through reactor physics to the biological effects of radiation. It also includes practical training at the “Crocus” research reactor in Lausanne. Students must therefore accept the need to study at several locations. The course will produce about ten graduates per year.

At the same time the Forum for Nuclear Energy wants to improve the image of nuclear energy in order to recruit bachelor degree students for the new specialist field. Prasser said that if nuclear energy is to remain one of the two central pillars of Switzerland’s electricity supply in the future, the construction of a new nuclear power station will need to be planned and implemented in the next few years. He said this would require college graduates who were familiar with the latest developments in nuclear engineering.