ASN inaugurates its Scientific Committee responsible for examining ASN's research orientations in the fields of nuclear safety and radiation protection

ASN's Scientific Committee held its first meeting on 8 July 2010.

The Scientific Committee was created by resolution 2010-DL-0012 of 27 May 2010 and its main activity is examining and giving an opinion on research to be conducted or deepened in the fields of nuclear safety and radiation protection.

The meeting on 8 July saw the official inauguration by the ASN Commission of the Committee of six members, each appointed for their expertise for a four-year term.

At the end of the first meeting, the Committee sent the ASN Commission, for approval, a proposal for its rules of procedure specifying how it will function.

The high standard of the decisions made by ASN relies particularly on robust technical expertise. This expertise has to rely in turn on the best knowledge available at the time.

Consequently ASN, like its main foreign counterparts, is concerned about the availability of the knowledge necessary for expertise to be provided in five, ten or twenty years' time.

It is therefore important that it identifies the research areas that will contribute to acquiring this knowledge. This demands that ASN maintain relationships with those involved in research in nuclear safety and radiation protection on the one hand, and with its foreign counterparts on the other.

The creation of a Scientific Committee for ASN is a central element in the implementation of this policy, especially because ASN is not a research institution and does not want to get involved neither in the construction of research programs nor in their implementation.

Finally, ASN wants to make sure that the needs identified are taken into account when the orientations of research into nuclear safety and radiation protection are defined by IRSN, operators, other French research bodies (universities, industry), and in the framework European and international projects.