INNOVATIVE TRAINING AND EDUCATION FOR LARGE LASER INFRASTRUCTURES Erasmus Project

Project Title

INNOVATIVE TRAINING AND EDUCATION FOR LARGE LASER INFRASTRUCTURES

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The project took place in the context of large laser infrastructures, some under developments and some already operational at several sites across Europe.
The Extreme Light Infrastructures (ELI) all rely on state of the art ultra-high intensity laser technologies. Three locations, namely Prague in the Czech republic (ELI-Beamlines), Szeged in Hungary (ELI-Alps) and Bucarest in Romania (ELI-NP) have been designated to welcome these unique and complementary centers to be constructed and operated as facilities for the scientific and private community with an investment volume exceeding 850 M€. A fourth infrastructure (Apollon) of the same type as the ELI centers is also being developed in Paris at Ecole Polytechnique.
The design, construction and operation of these large-scale laser infrastructures require highly educated personnel in various domains. We evaluate that each site has to recruit technical human resources among technicians, engineers and researchers. Altogether, the need for high level skills represent a pool of 500 to 600 people. Additionally, the laser sources and beam lines will be delivered through public procurement either partly or entirely by private companies mainly originating from the EU. The supplemental industrial workload generated by the ELI programs will require companies to hiring several hundreds of specifically trained employees. On top of that, European laser facilities already operational experience turnover which target the same pool of trained professionals. Each country in the EU proposes standard curricula covering optics, lasers and photonics aimed at educating a rather stable flow of students. However, the sudden need engendered by the ELI programs exceeds the training potential of our nations in these specific topics. Even if we setup an emergency program at several universities, it will still take at least 8 years to train a high school student at a doctoral level. We are therefore facing an extended skill deficit that might endanger the actual implementation of these large-scale infrastructures.
It was the aim of this project to bring together strategic partners able to propose short-term solutions covering the immediate needs identified by the consortium. The consortium has been naturally created with partners experiencing the skills deficit (5 major laser facilities) and 5 partners experts in education, training and innovative pedagogical techniques (Universities, training center, ‘serious games’ company).

The main objective of the project was to mitigate the above mentioned massive skills shortage in a time scale compatible with the infrastructures roadmap. As a first priority, we have to develop a global laser safety program that is applicable in each facility and in each country. An additional laser-based nuclear radiation safety program was also elaborated. Beyond the personnel safety, the partners had identified a large deficit in skills and knowledge about optics, lasers, photonics and associated technologies. We therefore have implemented a pedagogical approach that has been never used so far in laser and optics education (we are not aware of a similar approach in other domain either) and trained students and professionals at the highest level in very short terms.

The safety programs development consisted in building curricula at 3 different levels (Laser Safety Officer, users and non-users). The challenge here is to come up with a program that is compliant with national workers law and labor codes in the perspective to obtain certification at the European level. The revolutionary approach we developed here was implemented in the context of topical education in optics, lasers and photonics. Our pedagogical concept uses information technologies. Two types of actions were considered. We developed a library of small programs aiming at simulating complex physical effects occurring in laser or optical devices significantly easing the understanding of the underlying physics. We also used advanced technologies of video games for educational purposes and developed a complete training tool. In our concept, the trainee is immersed in a virtual 3D laboratory (Oculus mask) where he has to build, test or align optical or laser devices. Augmented reality helps him learn complex alignment procedures by explaining, on demand, the properties and uses of these components. The 7 trainings created consisted in teaching attendees advanced concepts using either the propagation software or the 3D virtual reality laser lab.

Beyond the partial mitigation of the partner’s skill deficit, we have organized a dissemination strategy able to impact a larger audience with the tools developed in this project. We are confident on the fact that the innovation proposed here and in particular the virtual reality approach will generate novel ideas and lead to the submission of new proposals.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 359553,49 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITE DE BORDEAUX & Country: FR

Project Partners

• SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL
• ASSOCIATION POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT DE L’ENSEIGNEMENT ET DES RECHERCHES AUPRES DES UNIVERSITES, DES CENTRES DE RECHERCHE ET DES ENTREPRISES D’AQUITAINE
• INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE -DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA SI INGINERIE NUCLEARA “HORIA HULUBEI” (IFIN-HH)
• ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE EXTREME-LIGHT-INFRASTRUCTURE DELIVERY CONSORTIUM
• SZEGEDI TUDOMANYEGYETEM
• ELI-HU KUTASI ES FEJLESZTESI NONPROFIT KOZHASZNU KORLATOLT FELELOSSEGU TARSASAG
• FYZIKALNI USTAV AV CR V.V.I