Communicating the safety of radioactive waste disposal – the perspective of a person responsible for science and technology within an implementing organisation

Communicating the safety of radioactive waste disposal is a major issue. For the scientists involved, this communication has different target groups (different groups within the implementer organisation, safety authorities, licensing bodies, decision-makers, public, etc.). Most of the work by a typical scientist is directed at internal clients (people within the organisation, scientific community directly related to project work, etc.) and at the authorities concerned with reviews and licensing. For that purpose the scientist has today a whole suite of highly complex communication tools (3-D visualisation, etc.) that are extensively used. However, these tools are often not the key to success in communicating to the public. For the public, waste management is an issue of concern that often also involves emotional components (fear, mistrust, etc.) and these are not necessarily best addressed with the tools the scientist normally works with. Therefore, communication with the public is very challenging for many scientists; being knowledgeable on a topic does not necessarily make a scientist a good communicator.