Overview of Recent Activities on Safety Culture and Human and Organizational Factors Carried Out at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission

The Institute for Energy and Transport (IET) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) is since more than ten years active in the field of Safety Culture (SC) and Human and Organizational Factors (HOF). Several activities related to SC and HOF have been and are carried out in the frame of the EU Nuclear Safety Clearinghouse for Operating Experience Feedback (Clearinghouse). The Clearinghouse was established in 2008 to enhance nuclear safety through the lessons learned from NPP events, and to provide help in Operational Experience Feedback (OEF) process primarily to nuclear safety Regulatory Authorities and to their Technical Support Organizations within the EU. Additionally to these activities, during the Fukushima accident, Clearinghouse has been regularly providing reports on the status and progress of the accident to the EU Regulatory Authorities. Moreover, experts, selected from the JRC staffing, were directly engaged in the EU-wide risk and safety assessments of nuclear power plants known as "the Stress Tests".