In connection with the closure of the Sevastopol National Institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry in 2015, Ukraine has been in need to organize training of specialists with higher education in the field of physical protection, accounting and control of nuclear materials.
At the same time, experts in nuclear security are in great demand at enterprises and institutions operating in the nuclear power sector, central executive agencies managing and regulating the use of nuclear energy, state law-enforcement and special-purpose authorities, among others.
Ukraine has all capabilities to create the system of training and offer extension courses in physical nuclear security.
In April 2015, experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (incentivized and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy) carried out the initial assessment of the ability of Ukrainian universities to create a national system for training nuclear security specialists, and particularly the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” has been pinpointed to serve these purposes.
The Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine initiated a number of meetings, involving the representatives of Ukrainian universities and stakeholders (the national nuclear energy generating company Energoatom, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine). As a result, it was decided to organize a master’s degree program in the specialty 143 Atomic Energetics at the Nuclear Power Plants and Engineering Thermal Physics Department of the Faculty of Heat and Power Engineering under Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, which has a license to train such specialists and received full accreditation.
An important factor in making this decision was the fact that practical training in this area will be provided at the George Kuzmycz Training Center for Physical Protection, Control and Accounting of Nuclear Materials of the Institute for Nuclear Research under the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Cooperation Agreement # 0/1500/07 of March 4, 2019), which has the requisite equipment and a testing ground.
International institutions made a weighty contribution to the organization of the master’s degree program.
Owing to the support of the U.S. Department of Energy, the teaching staff of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute received practical training in the implementation of the above master’s degree program at the Texas Tech University and the U. S. Sandia National Laboratories, they also participated in IAEA training courses, and training materials of 15 relevant courses were developed as well.
The International Security Policy Bureau, Global Affairs Canada, and the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority allocated the funds to Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute to establish and equip a scientific and educational laboratory designed for physical nuclear security.