The Role of Technical and Scientific Support Organizations in Enhancing Nuclear Safety

Technical and scientific support organizations (TSOs) are important in every area of the nuclear industry, from mining of uranium through all fuel cycle activities, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance, life management and decommissioning of nuclear power plants, to other uses of nuclear technologies such as those in medicine and industry. They provide scientific and technological support services and develop new solutions, including those related to safety, security and environmental issues. They also contribute to the development of standards, the provision of technological information and the conduct of research related to the issues that are of interest to regulators and operators of nuclear facilities. Therefore, they can be viewed as a very important element of the technological infrastructure of the nuclear industry. Technical and scientific support organizations are expected to provide objective scientific and technical expertise and professional judgement based on the latest knowledge available to them. In the case of TSOs supporting regulatory bodies, they must be ready to provide proper technical solutions or approaches to existing and emerging regulatory issues. The most important role of TSOs supporting regulatory bodies is to provide effective measures for ensuring the safety of nuclear installations over the plant life cycle (design, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance, modifications, transportation, waste management and disposal, emergency preparedness and response, and decommissioning). The knowledge gained from this research represents the important of TSOs to ensure that the expertise requested by the regulator Moreover, it represents the different TSOs in many country and the Cooperation with international bodies such as the IAEA and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, as well as with other TSOs, that is necessary to maintain a technically advanced level of knowledge and to serve as a source of new ideas. (author)