I
Energy made
Nuclear, offshore and onshore wind, and the grid that moves them. Expansion poses an acquisition problem.
- Policy vocabulary
- Generation capacity · grid and interconnection · RED III
- Competence problem
- Acquisition
Energy · Fieldwork · WP2 · WP3 · WP7
Where the evidence comes from
Among the five sectors the call proposes, the consortium chose energy as the systemic backbone the others depend on. But making energy, turning energy into matter and standing an energy system down are not the same competence. Expansion poses an acquisition problem; decommissioning poses an unlearning and transfer problem. Greenpulse encodes the distinction as energy made, embodied and retired, and holds every moment in at least five countries.
Planned work, not a funded project
The energy field, in three moments
II
Energy embodied
Energy → matter: steel, cement, ammonia, chemicals and batteries. Matter → energy: electrolysers and hydrogen. Both are energy held in matter.
- Policy vocabulary
- Energy-intensive industries · Net-Zero Industry Act strategic technologies · foundation industries
- Competence problem
- Energy ↔ matter
III
Energy retired
Coal and lignite exit and nuclear dismantling. Decommissioning poses an unlearning and transfer problem: what is worth carrying out of a closing industry, and who decides?
- Policy vocabulary
- Just Transition Mechanism · Energy Efficiency First · circular economy
- Competence problem
- Unlearning and transfer
The portfolio is deliberately not a set of build-out sites. Cedefop’s 2022–2035 forecasts put employment in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply at +50% in Belgium and +28% in Latvia, while attributing to the green transition a fall of 13% in the same sector in France and of 29% in French mining and quarrying; the North Sea basin and Poland’s lignite fields contract on the same clock. Expansion poses an acquisition problem, decommissioning an unlearning and transfer problem, and the prescribed frameworks are written as though the transition were uniformly expansionary. The site typology encodes the distinction as energy made, embodied and retired.
Six countries, four regime families
The six fieldwork countries are not a convenience sample. They span a typology of European skill-formation regimes, so the regime layer works as the analytical control that prevents naive pooling and as the dimension by which findings transfer.
Where the instrument is built: public authority still holds the levers that make a curriculum move, so a response interval measures an institution as well.
Adds the clearest European case of mid-career re-skilling institutionalised as a security guarantee attached to the worker.
Where the instrument is tested: both entered the Union in 2004 from the regime Montenegro is now leaving, so running the three together shows what accession-past and accession-live does to competence formation.
The one non-EU field case: building the competences to operate under Union energy rules while aligning at a fast pace towards accession.
The liberal pole enters the design through its macro layer rather than through fieldwork: the prescribed layer is read against O*NET, the instrument of the paradigmatic liberal regime, and POLYGON’s comparability check carries it to Canada’s OaSIS (task 6.4), so that the coordination hypothesis is tested against a liberal-regime baseline without a liberal-regime field site – a limit the design declares rather than hides. Montenegro, the one non-EU field case, isolates a competence class that no macro instrument captures and that ESCO does not name: the capacity to work to rules made elsewhere.
Site and dyad
Site
A territorial configuration of transition, in a coherent employment and training area, where a documented ecological or energy transformation changes at once work processes, occupational knowledge and the training on offer. Three sites per country, 18 in all: two opened in Round 1 (M8–M14), the third in the Responsive Collection (ReCx of WP7, M29–M36), after the Science-Meets-Politics conference (M24, MS5).
Dyad
The relation between a place where a change of process, technology or work organisation linked to the energy transition is observable and the training provision able to answer it in the same employment area. The pair, not the plant, is the unit of observation: the interval between a change of process and a change of provision, and the gradient of who is admitted to it, exist only in that relation.
Cross-cutting strands
A strand is not a site. It is a comparison the portfolio is built to support — the same competence observed in different directions of travel, across skill-formation regimes.
Nuclear
Nuclear appears twice. In the Cotentin it is build-out: the Flamanville relaunch, the Grand Carénage and the La Hague fuel cycle already strain recruitment. Around Mol, Dessel and Geel it is dismantling beside new construction: the BR3 reactor and Joint Research Centre facilities are taken apart next to the MINERVA accelerator and a small modular reactor programme. One safety-critical competence, observed as it is built up and as it is taken down.
🇫🇷 Cotentin🇧🇪 Mol–Dessel–Geel
Energy and matter
Cement and ammonia join steel and batteries on the energy-to-matter side, and electrolysers join them on the matter-to-energy side: the Lixhe cement works and John Cockerill's electrolysers in the Liège basin, Grupa Azoty's ammonia at Puławy, Stegra's steel plant at Boden–Luleå and the Nikšić steelworks, and the Lyten battery plant at Skellefteå.
🇧🇪 Liège basin🇵🇱 Puławy🇸🇪 Norrbotten, Boden–Luleå🇲🇪 Nikšić🇸🇪 Skellefteå
Eighteen sites, six countries
The sites at the places they are named after, numbered as in the list below; positions are approximate and every site stays indicative until D2.2 (M7).
made embodied retired outer ring: a second moment
- 1CotentinRound 1
- 2Brest, western BrittanyRound 1
- 3Paris-SaclayRound 2
- 4CORESO, BrusselsRound 1
- 5Liège basinRound 2
- 6Mol–Dessel–GeelRound 1
- 7Kurzeme coastRound 1
- 8Zemgale, KaigiRound 1
- 9Inčukalns gas storageRound 2
- 10KoninRound 1
- 11ŁebaRound 1
- 12PuławyRound 2
- 13PljevljaRound 1
- 14NikšićRound 2
- 15Bar coastRound 1
- 16Norrbotten, Boden–LuleåRound 1
- 17SkellefteåRound 2
- 18Stenungsund, VästsverigeRound 1
Sites
18 sites18 dyads12 in Round 16 countriesindicative until D2.2 (M7)
Sites, rounds and leads as in table 1.2b of the proposal; all remain indicative until D2.2 (M7). The Latvian counterparts are being confirmed with RSU before D2.2. Moments: M made, E embodied, R retired. For Belgium, the fieldwork language is shown as the proposal states it; Belgian fieldwork is run by CNAM.
🇫🇷 France
Cotentin proposed dyad
I · madeIII · retired
The nuclear relaunch (Flamanville, the Grand Carénage, the La Hague fuel cycle) already strains recruitment; the regional 3NC programme and the HEFAÏS welding centre in Cherbourg follow it.
- NUTS-2
- FRD1 Basse-Normandie
- NUTS-3
- FRD12 Manche
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Brest, western Brittany proposed dyad
I · madeII · embodied
Floating offshore wind and maritime decarbonisation recompose naval trades; the FORTEIM programme (CINav, UBO, ENSTA Bretagne) hybridises provision from vocational certificate to doctorate.
- NUTS-2
- FRH0 Bretagne
- NUTS-3
- FRH02 Finistère
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Paris-Saclay proposed dyad
II · embodied
The H-TASE consortium builds hydrogen provision ahead of a market still stabilising: skills policy preceding the stabilisation of work.
- NUTS-2
- FR10 Île-de-France
- NUTS-3
- FR104 Essonne
- Round
- Round 2, Responsive Collection (M29–M36)
🇧🇪 Belgium
CORESO, Brussels proposed dyad
I · made
Engineers from some twenty-five countries coordinate cross-border high-voltage flows, and every operator was certified on the regulated coordination tasks in February 2026. Counterpart: the English-taught energy engineering master of the Brussels universities.
- NUTS-2
- BE10 Région de Bruxelles-Capitale
- NUTS-3
- BE100 Arr. de Bruxelles-Capitale
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
- Fieldwork language
- EN
Liège basin proposed dyad
II · embodied
John Cockerill assembles hydrogen electrolysers at Seraing and the Lixhe cement works is preparing a CO₂-carbonation reactor for 2028, both served by the Technifutur competence centre.
- NUTS-2
- BE33 Prov. Liège
- NUTS-3
- BE332 Arr. Liège
- Round
- Round 2, Responsive Collection (M29–M36)
- Fieldwork language
- FR
Mol–Dessel–Geel proposed dyad
III · retiredI · made
The BR3 reactor and Joint Research Centre facilities are dismantled beside the MINERVA accelerator and a small modular reactor programme, by a workforce of sixty-four nationalities trained by the SCK CEN Academy.
- NUTS-2
- BE21 Prov. Antwerpen
- NUTS-3
- BE213 Arr. Turnhout
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
- Fieldwork language
- EN
🇱🇻 Latvia
Kurzeme coast being confirmed
I · made
A coastal site of energy made. Its training counterpart is being confirmed with RSU before D2.2 (M7).
- NUTS-2
- LV00 Latvija
- NUTS-3
- LV00B Kurzeme
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Recoded in NUTS 2024: Kurzeme was LV003 until 31 Dec 2023.
Borders the Livonian Coast: Livonian identity is recorded only with consent, and the Livonian Institute is informed and invited to comment before fieldwork.
Zemgale, Kaigi being confirmed
I · madeIII · retired
Energy made and energy retired on one site. Its training counterpart is being confirmed with RSU before D2.2 (M7).
- NUTS-2
- LV00 Latvija
- NUTS-3
- LV009 Zemgale
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Inčukalns gas storage being confirmed
II · embodiedIII · retired
A gas storage site, energy embodied and retired, opened in Round 2. Its training counterpart is being confirmed with RSU before D2.2 (M7).
- NUTS-2
- LV00 Latvija
- NUTS-3
- LV00A Rīga
- Round
- Round 2, Responsive Collection (M29–M36)
Pierīga (LV007) was abolished in NUTS 2024 and merged into LV00A Rīga.
🇵🇱 Poland
Konin proposed dyad
III · retired
ZE PAK's lignite exit, paired with the Just Transition Fund programme of the University of Applied Sciences in Konin for 1,539 participants.
- NUTS-2
- PL41 Wielkopolskie
- NUTS-3
- PL414 Koniński
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Łeba proposed dyad
I · made
Base of Baltic Power, paired with the offshore-wind courses of the Lębork skills centre.
- NUTS-2
- PL63 Pomorskie
- NUTS-3
- PL636 Słupski
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Puławy proposed dyad
II · embodied
Grupa Azoty curtailed ammonia output in the 2022 gas-price shock; paired with the chemical-technology classes the company sponsors.
- NUTS-2
- PL81 Lubelskie
- NUTS-3
- PL815 Puławski
- Round
- Round 2, Responsive Collection (M29–M36)
🇲🇪 Montenegro
Pljevlja proposed dyad
III · retired
The coal plant and mine, paired with the vocational school that names the mine as a teaching partner.
- NUTS-2
- ME00 Crna Gora
- NUTS-3
- ME000 Crna Gora — statistical region (NUTS-equivalent)
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Montenegro is a single statistical region at all three levels. MONSTAT places Pljevlja in the Northern Region; that tier carries no Eurostat code.
Nikšić proposed dyad
I · madeII · embodied
The Gvozd wind farm and the steelworks, paired with the electrical-engineering school and its licensed adult programmes.
- NUTS-2
- ME00 Crna Gora
- NUTS-3
- ME000 Crna Gora — statistical region (NUTS-equivalent)
- Round
- Round 2, Responsive Collection (M29–M36)
Bar coast proposed dyad
I · made
The port and the Možura wind farm, paired with a vocational school that does not yet teach renewables: the gap the dyad is chosen to observe.
- NUTS-2
- ME00 Crna Gora
- NUTS-3
- ME000 Crna Gora — statistical region (NUTS-equivalent)
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
🇸🇪 Sweden
Norrbotten, Boden–Luleå proposed dyad
II · embodiedI · made
Stegra's steel plant, paired with Lärcentrum, the Boden adult-education centre that built an industrial programme with it.
- NUTS-2
- SE33 Övre Norrland
- NUTS-3
- SE332 Norrbottens län
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
Lies within Sámi reindeer-herding lands: Sámi identity is recorded only with consent, and the Sámi Parliament and the herding communities concerned are informed and invited to comment before fieldwork.
Skellefteå proposed dyad
II · embodied
The Lyten battery plant, paired with the municipal higher vocational programme in battery manufacturing.
- NUTS-2
- SE33 Övre Norrland
- NUTS-3
- SE331 Västerbottens län
- Round
- Round 2, Responsive Collection (M29–M36)
Lies within Sámi reindeer-herding lands: Sámi identity is recorded only with consent, and the Sámi Parliament and the herding communities concerned are informed and invited to comment before fieldwork.
Stenungsund, Västsverige proposed dyad
II · embodied
The low-carbon conversion of the West Sweden chemical cluster, paired with chemical-process operator programmes.
- NUTS-2
- SE23 Västsverige
- NUTS-3
- SE232 Västra Götalands län
- Round
- Round 1 (M8–M14)
On the codes
- EU Member State sites carry NUTS 2024 codes — Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/674, in force since 1 January 2024. Latvia was restructured in that revision: Kurzeme was recoded and Pierīga was abolished.
- Montenegro carries a statistical region code (NUTS-equivalent, candidate country). It is a single region at all three levels; the MONSTAT Northern / Central / Coastal tier carries no Eurostat code.
- Part B gives the NUTS-3 codes; the NUTS-2 names shown are the standard parents of those codes.
- All sites and dyads remain indicative until the field manual, Circle protocol and dyad protocol (D2.2) are accepted at M7 (MS2), with a signed access agreement on both sides of each of the 12 Round 1 dyads; reserve sites are identified per country in the field manual.
Next door
The gap