In 2010–2016 a series of two “CINCH projects” – CINCH-I: Cooperation in Education in Nuclear Chemistry, and CINCH-II: Cooperation and training in Education in Nuclear Chemistry – was supported within Euratom FP7. The projects aimed at mitigating the special skill-based deficits within nuclear chemistry at master and doctorate levels and the decline of number of staff qualified in this field. The projects were built around the well-proven five-phase (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) Systematic Approach for Training (SAT) developed by IAEA; while CINCH-I dealt with the first three phases of the process, CINCH-II concentrated on the Implementation. Additionally, evaluation mechanisms were proposed and tested on the pilot courses developed during the projects. European Network on Nuclear and Radiochemistry Education and Training (nrc-network.org) was established within CINCH-II project.

Next in the series was The MEET-CINCH project funded under Horizon 2020 between 2017-2022. The MEET-CINCH project does not aim at sustainability of CINCH-I and CINCH-II only – its main aims are to proactively bring the results achieved so far to their end-users (CINCH VET – Vocational Education and Training – e-shop), significantly contribute to attracting new talents and increasing the nuclear (chemistry) awareness by developing a MOOC – Massive Open On-line Course, and investigate the applicability of the modern Flipped (Inverted) Classroom concept in the nuclear chemistry teaching and training field.

Last in the series is A-CINCH project, which augments CINCH teaching tools developed in the three previous projects with the state of the art three-dimensional (3D) virtual reality (VR) environment to complete the existing toolbox for radiochemistry education. It is our belief that including a sophisticated VR radiochemistry lab and integrating it with traditional teaching, training, and advanced distance-learning methods available among the CINCH Tools will make the NRC field more attractive for younger generations and enhance the learning outcome of the very expensive, but indispensable, hands-on training.