PhD Award
The ENS offers an annual award to recognize an outstanding PhD thesis. The award is organized under the auspices of the ENS High Scientific Council.

The ENS High Scientific Council values excellence, innovation, and originality in scientific research in the field of Nuclear Science and Engineering. In order to express this point of view and to encourage these traits among PhD students, the HSC selects an outstanding PhD student based on scientific merit, degree of innovation, and extent of originality of his/her dissertation.

For this award, each national society nominates one candidate. Since many national societies already offer PhD Awards (on a nation-wide level), the idea is to add value to those awards by allowing the winner to participate in a European-wide competition.

The candidates are evaluated by the HSC in a two-stage process. In the preliminary stage, candidates are evaluated based on their dissertation, papers, and recommendation letters according to the HSC evaluation criteria. Finalists are then invited for a personal presentation in front of the HSC, which entails a presentation, followed by a Q&A session. The winner is then selected based on both the preliminary evaluation and the presentation. The renowned scientists of the ENS High Scientific Council (HSC) will act as the Selection Committee for this prestigious award.

The winner of this prestigious award receives prize money of 2000€.

Latest news
Winners and Laureates of the ENS PhD Award

Winner and Laureates of 2023

Winner
Dr. Chloé CHERPIN

Modelling the behaviour of colloidal corrosion products in the primary circuit of Pressurized Water Reactors

Laureates
Dr. Márton KIRÁLY

The properties of nuclear fuel cladding materials under normal operation and accident conditions

Dr. Pilar CANO MEGIAS

Characterization of main ion properties for the optimization of future fusion power plants

Dr. Simone SIRIANO

Characterization of main ion properties for the optimization of future fusion power plants

Winner and Laureates of 2022

Winner
Dr. Stanislas DE LAMBERT

Contribution to the multiphysical analysis of fuel assembly bow

Laureates
Dr. Liberato VOLPE

High Temperature Oxidation Studies of Ni-base Alloys: Understanding the Role of the “Precursor Events” during the Early Stages of Stress Corrosion Cracking

Dr. Matteo D’ONORIO

Safety Analyses with uncertainty quantification for fusion and fission nuclear power plants. Applications to EU DEMO fusion reactor and BWRs

Dr. Jaen OCADIZ FLORES

Molten Salt Reactor Chemistry: Structure and Equilibria

Winner and Laureates of 2021

Winner
Dr. Marco TIBERGA

Development of a high-fidelity multi-physics simulation tool for liquid-fuel fast nuclear reactors

Laureates
Dr. Niels CAUTAERS

Nanoscale study of ageing and irradiation induced precipitates in the DIN 1.4970 alloy

Dr. Laura CLOUVEL

Uncertainty quantification of the fast flux calculation for a PWR vessel

Dr. Ilkka POHJALAINEN

Gas-phase chemistry, recoil source characterization and in-gas-cell resonance laser ionization of actinides at IGISOL

Winner and Laureates of 2020

Winner
Dr. Stephanie THORNBER

The development of high fraction zirconolite glass-ceramics for the immobilisation of actinides in plutonium residues for long-term geological disposal

Laureates
Dr. Fulvio BERTOCCHI

On Coherent Structure, Flow-Induced Vibrations, and Migratory Flow In Liquid Metal Nuclear Reactors

Dr. Tom PETIT

Comprehension and modelling of toughness tests with pop in: Application to 6061-T6 aluminium and effect of neutron irradiation

Dr. Pablo ROMOJARO

Nuclear Data Analyses for Improving the Safety of Advanced Lead-cooled Reactors

Winner and Laureates of 2019

Winner
Dr. Marion LOSNO

Development of a separative microsystem for radionuclides analysis in nitric acid media on organic monolith

Laureates
Dr. Marat MARGULIS

Feasibility Analysis of Representative Configurations of Core Degradation Situation During Severe Accidents in Nuclear Reactors

Dr. Anna MICHAELIDESOVA

Cellular Response to Proton Radiation

Dr. Stanislav PECKO

Analysis of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels Using Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy. 

Winner and Laureates of 2018

Winner
Zsolt ELTER

Neutron monitoring based on the higher order statistics of fission chamber signals Chalmers
University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden

Laureates
Silvia ESPINOSA Gútiez, 

Theoretical explanations of I-mode impurity removal and H-mode poloidal edge asymmetries
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Kristof GLADINEZ

Nucleation and growth of lead oxide particles in liquid lead-bismuth eutectic
University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium

Amélie ROUCHON

Analysis and development of deterministic and stochastic neutron noise computing techniques with applications to thermal and fast reactors
CEA Saclay – DEN/DANS/DM2S/SERMA/LTSD, France