Science and regulation 50 years hand in hand in radiation safety work in Finland

The first predecessor of the present Nuclear and Radiation Safety Authority of Finland (STUK) was founded in 1958 to regulate the use of radiation and to study artificial radiation in the environment. In those days radiation was used only in medical and industrial applications and there were also first indications that atmospheric nuclear tests might cause significant exposure to radiation, especially in the Northern Finland. Focusing activities of the new Institute of Radiation Physics, as STUK was called in those days, to these two activities laid foundation for the operations culture where regulators and scientists work together to achieve the optimum level of safety. Since those early days STUK has continued this operations model and developed it to include also other activities. Today STUK is the national regulatory body for both radiation protection and nuclear safety, but at the same time it is a research organisation and an expert body, supporting for instance the national emergency preparedness for nuclear and radiation accidents. This has brought great synergy benefits and given STUK an opportunity to use the limited national resources in the most effective way. This paper describes the main functions of STUK in its fifty years' operation and highlights the arguments favouring to keep regulatory and research activities as close to each other as possible. In today's world nuclear safety, radiation protection, and radiological preparedness and security issues are so closely connected with each other that organisations dealing with them should have comprehensive knowledge about all of them. (author)