INSPIRE: Bridging Skills & Innovation in Hydrogen Welding Inspection!

The INSPIRE – Revolutionising Training in Welding Inspection for Hydrogen Pipelines project brought together a dynamic focus group of experts from industry and education across Europe.

INSPIRE Focus Group Brings Together Industry and Training Experts Across Europe
On 30 April 2025, the INSPIRE consortium hosted an online Focus Group gathering around 30 participants from industry and education and training organisations specialised in welding inspection across Europe.

The session was designed as an open dialogue to share and validate the results obtained through the project’s combined bibliographical and contextual research, together with surveys addressed separately to industry and training centres.

During the meeting, participants discussed the current state of training for hydrogen pipeline welding inspection, highlighting several key findings:
🔹 There is no existing training syllabus dedicated to hydrogen pipeline inspection in Europe.
🔹 Training centres recognise the need to integrate hydrogen-specific metallurgical aspects and field hardness testing into future curricula.
🔹 The lack of qualified trainers and uncertainty regarding training duration and content were identified as main challenges.

While traditional hands-on training remains essential — especially for NDT — participants acknowledged that digital and AR tools could play a valuable complementary role in the future.

The Focus Group also confirmed that industry awareness of hydrogen-related inspection requirements is still emerging, reinforcing the importance of the INSPIRE project in bridging the gap between current qualifications and upcoming hydrogen infrastructure needs.

What is Our Goal?
To validate key findings from our desk research and surveys on the skills needs and opportunities in welding inspection for hydrogen (H₂) pipelines.

This important milestone confirms we are now ready to start designing new competence units and training modules, tailored to the specific needs of the H₂ sector — and developed with the active support of both industry and VET providers. The validated results mark a turning point: we are moving from analysis to co-creation of innovative training pathways, ensuring professionals are fully equipped for the future of green infrastructure.

This event directly informed the development of the Competence Units “H₂ Material Integrity and Safety” and “Inspection and Testing for Hydrogen Pipelines”, to be piloted in 2026.

78th IIW Annual Assembly 2025:
We are proud to announce that the outcomes of this work will be presented in the Technical Commission Pressure Vessels, Boilers and Pipelines, in the 78th IIW Annual Assembly and International Conference on Welding and Joining (June 2025), further reinforcing our alignment with European and international standards.

More information about our results?
🔹 The results will soon be published on our results page:
Get to Know More