NEA Policy Brief
November 2019

More information at: www.oecd-nea.org/nest

Knowledge management in the context
of an ageing workforce As the current nuclear workforce ages, concerns are arising over skills requirements andtransferring knowledge to the new generation of experts and staff. A key issue is the loss of tacitknowledge accumulated by those who have long experience in the nuclear industry.
 The best way to transfer knowledge to young people is to expose them to challenges throughworking on new projects, creating a continuity in the knowledge path.
 The management of critical knowledge concerns all sectors of the nuclear organisations (suppliers,utilities, regulators and all levels of the nuclear workforce).
 There exists a need to maintain a critical mass of nuclear activities at the national level to retain

knowledge without discontinuity.

What’s the issue?

Preventing future skills shortages and gaps means
ensuring a sustainable continuum of nuclear knowledge
and expertise. The holders of innovative knowledge andexpertise developed these by confronting challenges andhaving breakthroughs. There exists a need to develop
competences and preserve knowledge through newchallenges for the developing workforce. Eachorganisation must become a sustainable knowledgeorganisation, by establishing programmes to develop a
trained and skilled workforce. The NEA Nuclear Education,
Skills and Technology (NEST) framework was established
to help member countries address these workforce needs.

activities more difficult and more expensive, and raisingquestions about the ability of nuclear organisations to
conduct nuclear operations safely in the coming years.
The competencies required by the nuclear workforce
have sometimes been described through a pyramid,
where the nuclear workforce is classified based on its
level of education and skills.

Figure 1. Pyramid of competencies andskills for the nuclear industry workforce

Education, qualifications and skills

Knowledge is a vital asset without which no organisation
can operate safely or economically. The nuclear sector
has reached maturity; it is staffed by experts andemployees who have been working in the field for
decades. As a growing number of high-level nuclear
experts in NEA member countries retire, replacing theexperience and expertise lost is a growing concern. This
problem is compounded by the dwindling number ofrecent graduates in the field in many countries, anddeclining investments in nuclear R&D between 1974(74% of total energy R&D investment) and 2017 (19%)(IEA, n.d.). The result is a potential knowledge andcompetence loss if organisations do not put in place theappropriate programmes and measures to preserve,
manage and transfer knowledge to the next generation.

Nuclear

Nuclearised

Nuclear-aware

Number of people
Source: NEA, 2000.

Why is this important?
Nuclear education and skills development are
fundamental to building a healthy and knowledgeable
workforce. Many NEA member countries are reporting
their concern that a growing proportion of the high-level
nuclear experts are retiring, while the number of recent
graduates in the field who are able to replace them isdecreasing. Another issue lies in harvesting tacitknowledge that cannot be easily codified and stored,
because it is based on personal experiences. A large
share of this knowledge is held by experts nearing
retirement. Thus, the knowledge accumulated by thishighly qualified workforce could be lost, making nuclear

At the top level of the pyramid shown in Figure 1 is
the most highly qualified workforce, which hasaccumulated unique experiences and knowledge thatcannot be stored in books or procedures. Managing thisknowledge involves not only training and educating thenew workforce, but also reconsidering the existingknowledge-management transfer strategies.
The middle and bottom levels of the pyramid inmost countries benefit from on-site training. The issue
here is how to harmonise qualification processes, andfacilitate workforce mobility across sectors and countriesto enhance and diffuse knowledge.

NEA Policy Brief: Knowledge Management
In countries with developed nuclear programmes,industries and nuclear operators drive the developmentof the nuclear sector and are able to tackle the gaps insome specialist areas, such as safety and operations.
Countries who are embarking in a nuclear energy
programme, on the other hand, lack the expertise toestablish and run nuclear operations. These difficulties
are compounded by a scale effect: manufacturing
capabilities need a critical mass of activities to meet therequested level of quality and performance. Hence,countries with limited nuclear programmes will face
more difficulties in recruiting and retaining experts,
compared to countries with very large programmes.
In countries where industry has established a talentpipeline through relationships with universities andenhanced on-site learning, it is necessary to optimise
workforce efficiency rather than train the workforce,
possibly by harmonising the qualification process andfacilitating workforce mobility across countries andsectors.

How can the NEA help?
The NEA contributes significantly and continuously topreserving and transferring explicit knowledge in fields
suchasnuclear science, radioactive waste
management and radiological protection. NEA
activities conducted by working parties and expert
groups provide considerable value in gathering theknowledge, data and experience accumulated by NEA
member countries, and transforming them into explicit
and transferrable knowledge.
The NEA has been developing the NEST framework toadvance the expertise, skills and human capacities thatmember countries feel are necessary. It does so by
exposing early-career researchers to challenging projects
and real-world problems through hands-on training. This
will not only promote the transfer of knowledge from theolder generation of nuclear experts, but will also support
the enhancement of a knowledgeable and skilledworkforce who could become the next generation of
nuclear leaders and experts.

Figure 2. Nuclear workforce pyramid byqualifications and expertise
Nuclear and STEM experts(MSc and PhD)

Qualification

Engineers andtechnicians (BSc)
Vocational andprofessional qualifications

GeneralUniqueInnovative

Expertise

What should policy makers do?
The policy actions to be undertaken at the national level
depend on the needs and requirements of differentcountries and stakeholders, based on the local context
and national policies.
Factors to be considered at the national level include
the level of development of the nuclear sector in thecountry (embarking, advanced or phasing out); thecountry’s increasing or decreasing nuclear use; and thesize of the country’s nuclear energy capacity. In
countries with a large nuclear programme, the needs
encompass all the levels of the skills pyramid. In
countries with a small or vanishing nuclear programme,
there exists a need to keep workforce competencies
alive to address challenges such as reactor operation,decommissioning of facilities, waste management, andstaying at the forefront of research and innovation.
Factors to be considered at the organisational level
include the lack of graduates; the lack of skills; workforce
retirement; the need to preserve and transfer knowledge
to individuals; and the need to enhance knowledge flow
within and among organisations.
To identify the people most affected by the loss ofknowledge and suggest appropriate mitigation
measures, the workforce needs to be categorised not
only in terms of qualifications (Figure 1), but also interms of their expertise (Figure 2). Thus, policy makers
need to reconsider the skills pyramid, not only alonghorizontal lines, but also considering expertise along
vertical lines: general; unique; innovative.
General tasks and procedures (left column) areexplicit; the knowledge required to perform them isacquired through education and training. No specificissue has been identified in this context, apart from abetter use of human resources.
Unique competencies and expertise (middle column)
are obtained through education and experience; they aretacit and difficult to transfer. With declining activities in
the nuclear sector in many OECD countries, developing
and preserving this knowledge may entail sharing
expertise and promoting workforce mobility towards
countries that are still developing their nuclear activities.
Innovative knowledge (right column) permeates alllevels of the pyramid, and is acquired by experiencing
and solving challenges. The innovative workforce cansolve complex problems, create new knowledge anddevelop new products.
The main challenge in knowledge management isharvesting tacit knowledge based on the personal
experience of those at all levels of the skills pyramid.
The innovation cycle in the nuclear sector is 20-30 years.
There exists a real and pressing need to preserve theknowledge of those who participated in nuclear
development – the keepers of nuclear knowledge whocurrently support governments, corporations andregulators.

Further reading
IEA (n.d.), Energy Technology RD&D, www.iea.org/statistics/rdd (database).
NEA (2012), Nuclear Education and Training: From Concern
to Capability, OECD Publishing, Paris.

NEA (2000), Nuclear Education and Training: Cause forConcern?, OECD Publishing, Paris.

This paper is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and the arguments employed herein do not necessarilyreflect the official views of the OECD, the NEA or their member countries. For information on Israel, please visit: http://oecdcode.org/disclaimers/israel.html