Learning from the pandemic for planning series of webinars in nuclear matters: reporting about a successful experience

The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent mobility restrictions caused a sudden stop in programs of Summer Schools and even usual university courses normally held in presence. In response to that unprecedented worldwide impasse, most educational institutions around the world tried to compensate with distance learning, something that resulted in both initial difficulties in dealing with new IT tools and in an improved level of experience and skills in using them. During the first pandemic wave in 2020, most institutions focused on recovering the efficiency in teaching by the use of existing but somehow novel techniques. Then, during the second wave at the end of 2020 and in 2021, the new acquired experience stimulated to recover something more of the lost activities, e.g., the seminars normally held a latere of the normal courses. This was the case for the MSc in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Pisa, fully taught in English since 2012, that had the tradition to hold webinars in presence on Friday afternoons, with a few exceptions, providing its students with the very experience of worldwide experts and past students employed in the nuclear industry and research fields. In December 2020, the idea was launched to carry on the initiative anyway, notwithstanding the incoming new wave of contagion, by making use of web resources. The initiative of “Past-student and Expert Webinars in Nuclear Engineering” had a considerable success both on the side of lecturer adhesion and of student and general public interest and participation. In the paper, the main characteristics of the series of webinars and the reasons for the success obtained in delivering them are discussed, suggesting that in the future, no matter the end of the pandemic, the initiative can be maintained, having demonstrated both its high interest and its clear sustainability. A call for joining the initiative in a Europe-wide effort is also made with this paper, trying to make the initiative a common resource for several institutions worldwide, namely but not only for the members of the European Nuclear Education Network (ENEN), which kindly provided its aegis to this spontaneous initiative of the University of Pisa, accepting it as an unplanned contribution to the ENEN+ project.