IAEA co-ordinated research programme on the safety assessment of near-surface radioactive waste disposal facilities

The International Atomic energy Agency is starting a new Co-ordinated Research Programme on The Safety Assessment of Near-Surface Radioactive Waste Disposal Facilities with the acronym INSARS (International Near-Surface Radioactive Waste Disposal Safety Assessment Reliability Study). This programme is aimed at improving confidence which can be attached to the results of safety assessments. A Consultants' Meeting was held recently in the Agency Headquarters at Vienna to define the objectives, scope and preferred approach for conducting the programme and to formulate potential intercomparison/validation test cases for the programme. This paper describes the main conclusions and recommendations of the meeting