ASN renews the Advisory Committees for nuclear safety and creates a new Advisory Committee for “Decommissioning”

In the exercise of its duties, ASN coordinates technical investigations which lead to resolutions and opinions. These investigations draw on internal and external expertise, this latter being primarily the responsibility of IRSN, in its capacity as the ASN technical support organisation.

For the more complex subjects, ASN also has recourse to the Advisory Committees of experts (GPE) reporting to the ASN director general. On 2 October 2018, it renewed the composition of the following five Advisory Committees for a period of four years, their mandates having expired:

• the Advisory Committee for Nuclear Reactors (GPR),
• the Advisory Committee for Laboratories and Plants (GPU),
• the Advisory Committee for Waste (GPD),
• the Advisory Committee for Transports (GPT),
• the Advisory Committee for Nuclear Pressure Equipment (GPESPN).

ASN wished to create a new Advisory Committee for activities related to decommissioning (GPDEM). This Advisory Committee was set up to deal with the growing challenges of the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, which are distinct from those concerning the operation of facilities in service or the management of nuclear waste. Its members were appointed for a four-year mandate by decision of the director general dated 30 October 2018.

There are also two other Advisory Committees reporting to the ASN director general, the Advisory Committee for environment and radiation protection (non-medical)(GPRADE) and the Advisory Committee for medical exposure (GPMED). The mandate of their members, appointed in 2016, runs until 2020.

Each Advisory Committee has about thirty members. In 2018, the Advisory Committees met 28 times. The opinions of the Advisory Committees are published on the ASN website simultaneously with issue of the corresponding ASN position statement.

Composition of the Advisory Committees

In order to ensure the competence of its Advisory Committees, ASN called on various expert assessment organisations, licensees, manufacturers and carriers, university research laboratories, inspection agencies, civil society organisations and national and foreign administrations, with the aim of identifying and proposing candidate experts. A call for candidates was also opened on the ASN website.

In total, just over half the experts appointed are new members.

The members of the Advisory Committees are required to abide by the provisions of the external expert assessment charter produced at the request of ASN and contained in Appendix 2 to the ASN internal regulations. More specifically, an organisation was defined for identifying links and conflicts of interest and deal with them in an appropriate manner.