The nuclear research infrastructures open access scheme of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) at the European Commission – Contributions to education, training, mobility and scientific excellence

•Skills and competences in the nuclear field are needed in the EU.•Few civil laboratories in Europe allow experiments on nuclear materials.•JRC operates such infrastructure with some unique facilities and gives access via a coherent and transparent application process. Independently of the position of a country relatively to the use or not of nuclear in their energy mix, there will be always a need for competent and well-trained people, going from the development of innovative reactors to decommissioning of reactors, to societal challenges such as health or environmental applications. As part of the energy mix for low carbon dioxide emissions and of EU's green finance taxonomy – nuclear power plants are currently operated by 12 of the 27 Member States of the European Union. In other countries, like Germany or Italy, nuclear power plants need to be decommissioned. On the other hand, numerous promising non-power nuclear applications are developing for medical applications, environmental studies, food safety, agriculture, space exploration, nuclear clocks and isotope production for medical diagnosis or cancer treatment. For all these fields a competent, well-trained workforce needs to be maintained and further developed. This paper explains how the Joint Research Centre (JRC) as a Directorate-General of the European Commission contributes to this task by providing training, education and access to nuclear laboratories through its JRC Open Access Programme.