Development of the Group Discussion Method for Nuclear Security Culture Promotion: Good Practice of Japan

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the international effort for promoting nuclear security culture by introducing Japan's experience to develop nuclear security culture promotion activity for specific target audiences. Reflecting the recommendation on physical protection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear security regulations in Japan were revised in March 2012 and new regulation requires operators to establish a framework to promote nuclear security culture within their organization, including the involvement of top management. Since then, operators have been struggling to meet the new requirement since they did not have experience in nuclear security culture promotion activities. As the need for guidance on fostering nuclear security culture increases in Japan, the role of the center of excellence (COE) becomes more important. As the COE of Japan, the Integrated Support Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nuclear Security (ISCN) of Japan has been supporting domestic operators to promote nuclear security culture since 2013. ISCN has been dispatching its experts to nuclear facilities to have discussion with their staffs on how to promote nuclear security culture in their facilities, giving lectures and developing exercises. The typical format of operator's activity to promote nuclear security culture at their facility is to provide lecture on nuclear security, including the basic concept, threat to nuclear security, and roles and responsibilities of the operator. Such lecture is usually given to the audience with wide variety of responsibilities in the facility from the top leader to administrative staffs. ISCN has sent its experts to give such lectures at nuclear facilities in Japan for the past years. From feedback f and discussion with the lecture participants, ISCN learned that one of the major challenges for promoting nuclear security culture in Japan is to recognize the threat is real and credible. It is difficult for them to personalize the issue and believe that it is their responsibility to protect against those threats. There are security incident examples happened in foreign countries, but these cases are often regarded as "someone else's problem", not theirs. It is highly effective to use the actual case to learn about the threat and raise awareness, and many facilities in Japan in some extent experienced nuclear security event, though the seriousness of the event may vary; however, information sharing among operators is very limited. In order to counter these challenges, ISCN decided to develop a new format of culture promotion activity: more focused discussion-based approach suited for the target audience, with increased interaction among participants. For improve threat perception, ISCN developed a series of discussion topics that participants are able to find them familiar to their daily tasks, depending on target participants. Most of the discussion topics are derived from the real case example including foreign incidents; however, ISCN extracted the topics more relevant to participants. To balance between the confidentiality of information and effective information sharing, ISCN adopted real case studies from open sources without sensitive information but still containing useful for draw sufficient lessons learned for the participants. Also, through discussion, participants can explore deep enough to personalize the issue rather than just listening to the lecture. This paper will describe how ISCN transformed real case examples into discussion topics which are specific enough to be relevant to the participants' tasks; realistic enough for participants to feel the topic familiar to them and personalize the issue, but not revealing sensitive information; and easy and general enough for participants to discuss the topic without any specialized knowledge or skills. As the international community strengthens activities to promote nuclear security culture, demand for the practical guide to how to do it increases. The paper will share Japan's experience and assist others to develop more interactive culture promotion activities of their target audiences. (author)