NCBJ participates in the European project ORIENT-NM. The project aims to investigate the possibilities and critically evaluate the added value that would result from the establishment of a co-funded European partnership (CEP) to support the development of a coordinated European research and innovation program on nuclear materials. It is expected that such a partnership would have a positive impact on Europe's competitiveness in the global nuclear energy field.
The concept is based on creating a jointly managed package of research projects selected, coordinated, and evaluated by an international scientific committee. This structure should allow for better use of EU funds, avoidance of duplicate work, and centralization of organizational activities such as promotion, training, and organization of workshops and conferences. The immediate goal of the Orient NM project is to prepare an organizational scheme for the Co-funded European Partnership (CEP) project in the field of nuclear materials research. The project is based on cooperation within the Joint Project Nuclear Materials platform of the European Energy Research Alliance program.The European Commission plans to support the new CEP project with EUR 20 million under the HORIZON-EURATOM-2023-25 NRT-01-04 program for co-funded European partnership for research in nuclear materials, which, together with the expected co-financing by member states, will enable the implementation of projects worth around EUR 36 million. The Orient NM project at NCBJ is funded under the European Commission project number 899997 and the International Co-funded Project granted by the Ministry of Education and Science number 5244/H2022/2. The project at NCBJ is led by Professor Jacek Jagielski.