As part of its longstanding cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the European Technical Safety Organisation Network (ETSON) took the opportunity to hold a side event at the 68th IAEA General Conference which took place from September 16 to September 20 in Vienna, Austria. To inform and engage with representatives of the IAEA and its member states, ETSON President Jean-Christophe Niel (IRSN), ETSON Vice President Michel Van haesendonck and other experts of ETSON members highlighted recent and ongoing activities of the network.

After opening remarks and an introduction of ETSON by Jean-Christophe Niel, Didier Degueldre (BelV) presented the work of ETSON´s Technical Board on Reactor Safety (TBRS). With its 15 expert groups working on issues ranging from operating experience feedback, probabilistic safety assessments, severe accidents and emergency preparedness to decommissioning and waste management, the activities of the TBRS aim at the harmonization of robust safety assessment principles and methodologies in Europe and the identification and discussion of generic safety issues. Apart from ETSON´s Safety Assessment Guide which provides fundamental recommendations to expertise bodies on reviewing and assessing safety questions raised in nuclear activities, the TBRS groups´ findings result in complementary Technical Safety Assessment Guides (TSAGs) and Technical Reports. Current TBRS activities include the development of a TSAG on Hydrogen and other combustible gases as well as of a number of Technical Reports on topics such as implementation of passive systems, lessons learned on/from PSA, fuel assembly bowing and the challenges and opportunities for licensing process and safety assessment of light-water SMRs. All TSAGs and Technical Reports are published on ETSON´s website.

The current activities of the ETSON Research Group (ERG) were presented by Federico Rocchi (ENEA). The ERG´s goals are to identify and prioritize safety research needs of Gen. II-III+ Nuclear Power Plants, share information on relevant R&D projects and launch initiatives for new R&D research programs. Recent and current internal research projects of ETSON consist of benchmarks on hydrogen-related events such as deflagration or flame propagation and on assessments of radiological consequences. The latter had been performed by SSTC NRS (Ukraine), ENEA (Italy), VTT (Finland) and GRS (Germany) within the BARCO-project which was aimed at two goals: firstly, to carry out a comparative analysis of the performance of Emergency Preparedness & Response calculation codes used to assess off-site radiological consequences for an assumed general accident scenario at an Ukrainian NPP-site; secondly, to evaluate existing gaps in the modeling, the use of meteorological data and other databases by ETSON members and the skills of the participating organisations regarding the interpretation of results. The main outcomes of the BARCO-projects are available here. 

ETSON´s Junior Staff Program (JSP) was presented by Léopold Khalfi (IRSN). As a longstanding part of the network´s activities, the JSP had been put in place as a platform for young experts from ETSOM member organisations to build personal networks, share knowledge and experiences and develop their ability to work in an international context by working on practical case studies. The cornerstone of the program are the JSP Summer Workshops – one week long workshops which are open to all young expert of ETSON members and provide for the opportunity to present their work, conduct case studies as well as gain practical insights in the course of site visits to nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities. Each workshop is held in one of the ETSON member´s countries and dedicated to a special topic; recent workshops focused inter alia on aging management for human resources and equipment (Slovenia, 2024), SMR technologies (UK, 2023) and the dissemination of radioactive materials in sea and atmosphere (France, 2022). Furthermore, the ETSON JSP organises the annual ETSON Award – a competition in which scientific papers produced by young experts – ideally in collaboration from different ETSON members – are presented in form of a so-called science slam at the EUROSAFE Forum, the ETSON Conference or the IAEA TSO Conference. The next ETSON Award science slam will take place during the 2024 IAEA TSO Conference (2-6 December, Vienna).

Last but not least, ETSON Vice President and chair of the IAEA´s TSO Forum Michel Van haesendonck (BelV) provided participants with an overview of the TSO Self-Capacity Assessment Methodology (TOSCA). The methodology as well as a respective web tool have been co-developed by the IAEA and the TSO Forum and are aimed at all member states both those with a nuclear energy concept including decommissioning and disposal and those with a comprehensive radiation protection concept, even without the intention of establishing a nuclear energy program. By using the tool, organisations can gain essential insights into the status in its own national context. In addition to the self-assessment of their own level of knowledge and expertise, the technical focus of the tool is the provision, updating and mutual exchange of knowledge on the various regulatory functions - e.g. on the basis of case studies, development steps, national workshops, etc. Through the leadership of ETSON representatives in the Steering Committee of the TSO Forum, significant achievements have been made so far, such as the creation of the TOSCA core group fully dedicated to the implementation and the improvement of TOSCA and the performance of several regional and national workshops leading to future cooperation activities (Norway, Ghana, EuCAS network, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia) contributing to the promotion of TOSCA and ETSON´s vision among the TSOF members.

The presentations of the event can be downloaded here.