ETSON

On June 28, 2012 an official ceremony on recognition of SEC NRS as an associated member of ETSON took place in Helsinki (Finland) in frames of the meeting of the General Assembly of the European Technical Safety Organisations Network (ETSON). The documents concerning the Rostechnadzor’s TSO joining the European Network were signed by Jacques Repussard, President of ETSON and Director General of IRSN, and Alexander Khamaza, Director of SEC NRS.

The European Technical Safety Organisations Network (ETSON) was established in 2006 by technical safety organizations of France (IRSN), Germany (GRS) and Belgium (former AVN and presently Bel V) with the purpose to strengthen and maintain the current successful cooperation practice, as well as to enter the market of nuclear review in the status of a unified highly qualified expert. The activity of ETSON member states is aimed at rendering support to national regulatory bodies in all scientific and technical issues related to nuclear and radiation safety. In 2010 ETSON was joined by UJV / NRI (Czech Republic), VTT (Finland) and LEI (Lithuania), SSTC NRS (Ukraine), and the Network gained the status of an association in compliance with the French legislation.

ETSON sets itself a goal to develop and promote best practices in the field of nuclear safety assessment. The Network gets benefit from the experience of its member states in nuclear safety assessment with the aim to contribute to harmonisation of nuclear safety ensuring practices. ETSON also promotes a dialog between ETSON, European regulatory authorities in the field of nuclear safety, as well as other institutions of the European Union, IAEA and other international organizations.

SEC NRS takes part in ETSON General Assemblies.

At the ETSON General Assembly meeting in July 2014 the Director of SEC NRS made a presentation devoted to the IAEA IRRS (Integrated Regulatory Review Service) initial and follow-up missions to the Russian Federation in 2009 and 2013, respectively, in preparation to reception and conduct of which SEC NRS took an active part as a technical and scientific support organization for Rostechnadzor.

In frames of the meeting of ETSON General Assembly in October 2014 there were discussed organizational and financial aspects of the ETSON activity, and further plan of activities of the Network and its working groups.

Moreover, SEC NRS specialists were actively involved in seminars and meetings of the ETSON Technical Board of Reactor Safety (TBRS) as well as in the working and expert groups of ETSON, in particular:

• Waste Management and Decommissioning Working Group (WM&D),
• Knowledge Management Group (KMG),
• Safety Concept and Defence in Depth Expert Group (SC&DiD).
• ETSON Research Group (ERG),
• Project Initiation Group (PING).

In the course of the meetings there were discussed issues related to the activity of TSOs of ETSON member states in the field of scientific research as well as actual areas of scientific research under the projects implemented by the EU in frames of the Horizon 2020 programme.

In August 2014 the annual workshop under the ETSON Junior Staff Programme (JSP) took place with the involvement of junior specialists from the ETSON member states. In frames of the workshop the participants shared experience and opinions regarding the activity of the ETSON member states in the field of nuclear fuel management.