Towards a common knowledge base for nuclear research: A challenge for the stakeholders community and for the EC

At the Lisbon 2000 Summit, a strategic goal was proposed for the European Union: 'to become the most competitive knowledge-based economy with more and better employment and social cohesion by 2010'. Overall, in particular in the nuclear fission community, this EC initiative was well accepted by the main stakeholders. In Europe, the main stakeholders (i.e. suppliers and/or demanders) of nuclear knowledge are actually: the research organisations with mixed public/private funding), the manufacturing industry (or vendors), the utilities and waste management organisations, the regulatory bodies (or technical safety organisations/TSOs) and the academia. In the nuclear fission research area, under Euratom FP-5 (1998-2002), criticism was raised by a number of 'high level experts' that too many Community efforts were devoted to production (e.g. through execution of shared cost actions) and not enough to dissemination and transfer (e.g. through education and training) and exploitation (e.g. through innovation) of nuclear knowledge. They were also complaining about the wasted resources due to the 'fragmentation' of EU research. As far as production of nuclear fission knowledge is concerned, a variety of poles (or fragments) of scientific research and operational feedback does exist in many countries but there is no clear common strategy on how to integrate these fragments at European level with a long term prospect. As far as dissemination and transfer of nuclear knowledge is concerned, the situation in some EU-25 countries is dramatic: mostly due to a bad public perception of nuclear energy, the lack of teachers and students becomes a serious concern. As far as exploitation of nuclear knowledge is concerned, all stakeholders are concerned about the unfair balance between supply and demand of knowledge, and about the relatively poor impact of research on technological and societal changes. In conclusion, from a EU research point of view, the solutions to the above 'nuclear challenges' have a common denominator: a common durable knowledge base. Actually, the nuclear stakeholders are interested not only in knowledge, but also in know-how. A better knowledge management strategy, in the framework of a nuclear European Research Area (ERA), is needed, with emphasis on the coupling of 'production / dissemination / exploitation' of knowledge (PDE)