The Italian path toward an Ipcei on innovative nuclear technologies is entering the technical evaluation phase. The Direzione generale Domanda ed Efficienza Energetica of the ministero dell’Ambiente e della Sicurezza Energetica has published a notice to collect expressions of interest from professionals and establish a roster of technical and scientific experts. The roster will support the Commission tasked with reviewing the projects that companies intend to submit to the European initiative.
Applications must be submitted by November 25. The notice is aimed at professionals with at least ten years of experience, a requirement that highlights the specialized nature of the work required: not a general consultation on the return of nuclear power to Italy, but an investigative assessment intended to verify the content, maturity, and consistency of industrial proposals within the scope of the Ipcei.
The move comes just over a month after the opening of the call for expressions of interest from companies interested in participating in the nuclear Ipcei. First, the aim was to gauge and map the potential pool of initiatives; now the ministry is preparing to secure the expertise needed to subject them to a structured review. In a broad and complex supply chain like the nuclear sector, the quality of the preliminary assessment can have a substantial impact on which projects advance to subsequent stages.
What is in motion
Ipcei stands for Important Project of Common European Interest, the European instrument designed for initiatives deemed relevant to multiple Member States and EU industry. In the Italian case, the focus is on innovative nuclear technologies. The notice from Mase does not allocate funding, does not yet select industrial projects, and does not equate to the launch of new plants. Its purpose is to build the technical structure that will assist the evaluation Commission.
This distinction is anything but formal. In the current Italian debate, nuclear power is often reduced to the topic of plants and electricity generation. An Ipcei, however, can involve a broader value chain: skills, components, systems, research and development, industrial processes, and solutions linked to technologies deemed innovative. Based on the available information, the notice does not detail which segments will receive applications, nor what the composition of the list will be; it will be the expression of interest phase from companies that outlines the portfolio of proposals to be analyzed.
For Mase, creating a list of specialists means preventing a procedure with potential industrial impacts from being handled through an administrative review lacking adequate technical depth. Ten years of experience represents a minimum threshold, not an automatic guarantee regarding the variety of profiles that will actually be identified. The validity of the process will also depend on the ability to cover the disciplines relevant to the submitted dossiers, without overlaps or gaps.
Why the evaluation process carries as much weight as the call
Building a national application requires distinguishing between solid proposals and still-preliminary initiatives. This is a particularly sensitive point in a sector where programs at vastly different stages coexist: from research to industrial applications, through to projects targeting future large-scale deployment. A robust technical assessment is necessary to understand whether the proposed project has industrial viability, whether it fits within the framework of the initiative, and what contribution it can make to a European supply chain.
For companies, the opening of this ministerial channel makes the timeline of the procedure more concrete. The expression of interest is not in itself an endorsement of the project’s merit, but it places the initiatives within a process that will undergo formal review. For the public administration, the availability of external experts or those selected through the notice can accelerate the analysis, provided that roles, expertise, and evaluation criteria are applied consistently.
The issue also concerns Italy's industrial positioning. The country is reopening the debate on nuclear energy with the stated goal of looking at innovative solutions, while the operational framework, timelines, and implementation choices remain matters of political and regulatory definition. In the meantime, an Ipcei procedure can become ground where companies, competence centers, and supply chain players seek not to lose ground to other European countries. The value of the move should therefore not be measured solely by potential electricity generation: what counts is the opportunity to participate in technological and industrial supply chains that Europe considers strategic.
Many questions remain open
The available information makes it possible to clearly identify the next requirement — the submission of expert applications by November 25 — but does not yet allow any foresight into which projects will be evaluated, how many professionals will make the list, or which industrial entities responded to the previous call for expressions of interest. It would therefore be premature to read the notice as an implicit ranking or as an announcement of pre-allocated funding.
It also remains to be seen how the national selection will fit into the European debate on the nuclear Ipcei. The credibility of a bid depends not only on the interest shown by companies, but on the ability to demonstrate that individual proposals contribute to a shared goal and are supported by solid technical and industrial foundations. The preliminary assessment being prepared by Mase is the first national milestone of this review.
The immediate result of the notice is therefore procedural, yet far from marginal. The energy transition requires decisions on infrastructure and technologies with timelines far longer than those of the political news cycle. In the nuclear sector, where skills, licensing, investments, and consensus are inseparable factors, even assembling a panel capable of evaluating projects becomes part of industrial policy. Upcoming deadlines will tell whether corporate expressions of interest will translate into a sufficiently consistent cluster of initiatives, and whether Italy will manage to put forward an organized proposal within the European framework for innovative nuclear technologies.
