ETSON and the European research area

Full text: Safety research is discussed among stakeholders for several decades already. The ETSON (European Technical Safety Organization Network) has been officially created in 2006 and as an association (under the French law) in 2010 and is composed of 13 TSO (Technical Safety Organizations). Because research is essential for the TSO to provide good expertise, ETSON members are strongly involved in the European research area especially in the EURATOM fission program which represents their core business. Due to the different specificities of ETSON members, they cover all the six domain areas of the EURATOM fission framework program 7 (Management of Radioactive Waste, Nuclear Installation Safety, Radiation Protection, Infrastructure, Education and Training, Cross Cutting). All together, ETSON members participated in almost 75% of the projects of the framework program 7 EURATOM Fission. ETSON is also involved in the different platforms and associations: • Concerning waste management, the SITEX project allowed the TSOs (and NRAs) to set up a network capable of harmonizing European approaches to technical expertise in geological repositories for radioactive waste. Five ETSON members participated in this project. • The domain for the nuclear reactors generation II and III is developed by the NUGENIA association, one of the three pillars of SNETP (Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform). All ETSON members belong to NUGENIA and SNETP and the 10 priorities concerning nuclear safety defined by ETSON are included in the NUGENIA roadmap. • The radioprotection domain (radioecology, low doses, crisis management) is covered by the European Radioecology Alliance, the MELODI association and the NERIS Platform. All these themes will be under the OPERRA umbrella (Radiation Protection Federating Association). (author)