Winter and Summer Schools: Popular Tools for Training a New Generation of Scientists
Increasingly popular, summer and winter schools offer an array of opportunities for their participants as well as their organizers. With several events created and sponsored each year, Renaissance Fusion is the most active fusion startup in this area.
“Young scientists need the opportunity to grow and need to be supported as leaders, all the while recognizing that they are often already accomplished leaders in their own right.” In an article published in 2020, physicist-turned-historian and philosopher of science Koen Vermeir sums up a key idea: the need to provide the new generation of scientists with alternative channels through which to develop and share their knowledge.
Among these new avenues are summer and winter schools – a phenomenon gaining momentum in academic and research circles. “These are typically programs organized by institutions and/or private companies that target PhD students and young professionals internationally, and that promote scientific education outside the traditional classroom setting,” explains Andrea Tummino, Head of Academic Programs at Renaissance Fusion. And indeed, for early-career scientists, summer and winter schools are an ideal way to meet peers from around the world, exchange ideas with more senior colleagues, and deepen their understanding of their field of interest.
Participants of Renaissance Fusion’s first winter school in collaboration with the FuseNet association strike a pose in the startup’s headquarters near Grenoble.
Expanding One’s Profile and Standing Out in the Job Market
Summer and winter schools offer participants a range of valuable opportunities – advanced courses taught by leading experts in the field, but also, when a private company is involved in organizing them, “a chance to discover, very concretely, how a technology like nuclear fusion can be applied,” notes Tummino.
Renaissance Fusion’s initiatives are a perfect example. The startup partnered with the FuseNet association – of which it is an active member – in December 2023 to host a winter school at its headquarters on the outskirts of Grenoble, and again in April 2025 with the CEA for an off-site summer session in Aix-en-Provence.
Both events provided some ninety participants with a deep dive into what makes Renaissance Fusion’s product unique: a simplified stellarator-type nuclear reactor, liquid metals used as protective walls, and wide high-temperature superconductors tapes, thanks to lectures given by renowned scientists.
But this is not the only advantage of the format, which also strengthens students’ employability. “It’s a chance for early-career researchers to get noticed by Renaissance Fusion or by our partner institutions – and possibly land a job later on.” This has, in fact, already happened several times within the French startup, Tummino notes.
Jointly organized with the CEA, Renaissance Fusion’s first summer school took place in Aix-en-Provence.
A Useful Tool for Scientific Companies and Institutions
How about the private companies and institutions behind these training initiatives? Far from benefiting only the participants, summer and winter schools also serve as powerful drivers of growth and reputation for their organizers.
Jointly organizing a summer or winter school – or supporting and giving visibility to a partner’s initiative, as Renaissance Fusion did for the fourteenth edition of the Carolus Magnus Summer School in Brussels – offers valuable opportunities to strengthen ties and encourage collaboration among players in the same field.
It also helps ensure that the shared goal – such as achieving profitable, commercially available nuclear fusion – is reached as efficiently as possible. “Our goal isn’t to make our logo better known or to ensure that the public talks about us specifically,” Tummino emphasizes. “It’s to succeed in making nuclear fusion a technology that benefits the entire world.”
And to achieve that, nothing better than ensuring, together, that fusion remains in the minds of well-trained young professionals, who may one day take up the torch. Holding themed training sessions during school holidays thus becomes a key tool for educating and raising awareness about niche specialties that are sometimes overlooked or underrepresented in traditional teaching.
Summer and winter schools will remain part of Renaissance Fusion’s DNA going forward. The company has already announced its financial and logistical support for the Al-Nour Winter School, to be held from January 5–10, 2026 in Jordan, and plans to renew its collaboration with the CEA for 2026 and 2027 editions. These initiatives should further strengthen its position as the most active fusion startup in training the next generation of scientists.