NSERC CREATE Programs
The Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) federal funding initiative supports the training and mentoring of highly qualified undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from Canada and abroad through the development of innovative training programs. Funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), this federal program aims to increase:
- Student mobility, nationally or internationally, between individual universities and between universities and other sectors
- Interdisciplinary research within the natural sciences and engineering
- Collaboration between academic and non-academic sectors
Program funding is competitive, with select CREATE teams funded annually across all natural sciences and engineering disciplines. Each CREATE grant is a six-year program. More information on the NSERC CREATE program is available here.
Learners completing CLEAN achieve an experience beyond a typical undergraduate or graduate degree, obtaining key technical and professional workforce readiness skills needed to meet the urgent demand for a skilled nuclear workforce.
The “CLEAN” CREATE Advantage
The “CLEAN” CREATE AdvantageOur Vision and Mission
The Canada’s Life cycle for Existing and Advanced Nuclear (CLEAN) CREATE program supports technical and professional skills training for undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students in nuclear engineering and nuclear-related fields. CLEAN provides trainees with an enhanced learning experience over a typical degree program to ensure workforce readiness now.
Our students have access to specialized experiential learning opportunities (research laboratory exchanges, enhanced co-op opportunities, and a carousel of workshops and micro credentials, many of which have been custom developed by the CLEAN team). Students completing degrees as CLEAN participants benefit from:
- Canada-wide collaborations, inclusive to researchers in multiple stages of the nuclear installation lifecycle.
- New pathways for experiential learning, taking advantage of research centers/labs, research reactors, simulators, etc., across Canada.
- Industry involvement in technical and professional development training.
CLEAN Event Schedule at a Glance
CLEAN MSc students complete a minimum of one month mobility, cumulatively, throughout their degree, while PhD students complete a minimum of two cumulative months of mobility. Undergraduate students and PDFs are welcome to participate in CLEAN events, but are not required to meet mobility targets. CLEAN grad students attend the Annual Symposium and participate in one of:
Stream 1: Lab Exchange
Stream 2: Industrial Internship
Stream 3: Series of Micro-courses/Workshops
An abbreviated workshop and Symposium schedule is shown.
CLEAN Team
On the R&D side, CLEAN’s theme is the evolution and reliability of engineered safety barriers for nuclear technologies. With research areas including cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, fuel and coolant chemistry, and spent fuel waste storage, the CLEAN CREATE is comprised of eight researchers across universities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick:
University of Calgary (Dr. Jason Donev)
McMaster University (Dr. Markus Piro)
University of Regina (Dr. Arthur Situm and Dr. Irfan Al-Anbagi)
Royal Military College (Dr. Lindsay Grandy)
University of New Brunswick (Dr. Othman Nasir, Dr. Hamed Asgari, Dr. Olga Palazhchenko, and our coordinator: Ms. Anjali Sankar)
Our team broadly extends to collaborator institutions, University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan, and York University, and our partners, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Kinectrics, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, and ACENET.
