Regulatory management systems: Adapting to changes in the environment [Session summary]

Full text: The presentations and the discussions identified a number of key challenges that regulatory bodies are facing. These include challenges in maintaining and improving competence, as well as establishing the necessary policies and approaches to deal with new situations, mainly resulting from ageing or the prolonged operation of NPPs, the construction of new NPPs, the decommissioning of nuclear installations and the establishment of the waste management infrastructure. Declining education and research infrastructure is also observed in many countries. There is, therefore, an increasing need to: (1) Create an attractive environment for students in the nuclear safety area, to implement more aggressive recruitment strategies, to ensure that sustainable education and training capabilities are in place in the Member States and that a comprehensive knowledge management system is implemented in the regulatory bodies; (2) Consider cooperative efforts for activities demanding high resources. Further discussion may be needed on cooperation efforts for activities, such as new reactor design certification. The globalization of the energy market and the resulting changes in the structure and the management of the operating organizations lead the regulatory bodies to adapt their strategies. Particular attention is requested for ensuring the qualification of the operating organizations, and reviewing and inspecting the organizational performance in achieving and maintaining a high level of safety for the short term and the long term. Globalization also calls for more harmonization of regulatory requirements where appropriate. Efforts in this direction are pursued at the regional levels, acknowledging that harmonization does not mean uniformity. The role of the IAEA safety standards in building an international nuclear safety regime has also increased. The regulatory community will benefit strongly from cross-fertilization between the regional and multinational efforts, and the international development of more user friendly safety standards that take into account the feedback from the different users. Consideration should also be given to mapping the coverage and identifying differences and gaps between IAEA and industrial safety standards. Regulatory bodies have reached a high level of performance in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, and most of them are now implementing self-assessment as one methodology towards ensuring continuous improvement. It was recognized during the Conference that the peer review IAEA services, such as the IRRT missions, provide a unique opportunity to stimulate this continuous improvement process. The Conference supported the proposal to develop an advanced IRRT service based on peer review of self-assessments. It was also recommended by the Conference that the regulatory bodies of countries with nuclear power programmes should consider inviting an IRRT mission by the end of 2012. The effectiveness of the operational experience feedback exchange mechanisms was particularly addressed during Topical Session 2. It was recognized that it is primarily the responsibility of the operating organizations and that one of the priorities for the future will be to make better use in the Member States of the knowledge already accumulated in international databases. The participants felt that the IAEA should explore ways to consolidate diverse databases (such as NPRDS, 50.73, IRS, WANO SOER) containing reportable information and make it useful for Member States. Additionally, databases containing information on minor or near miss events that may constitute precursors for more significant events and other feedback, such as OSART and PROSPER reports, regulatory body inspection and lessons learned reports, should be considered for mining for important safety insights. With regard to the use of probabilistic approaches, the presentation and discussions highlighted the progress achieved but also the difficulties encountered, in particular, in ensuring an acceptable level of quality of the PSA studies and in com municating PSA results to the public. The conference concluded that there is a need to establish a better balance in using, in a complementary manner, both deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Finally, the importance of communications in building public confidence in the regulatory body was reinforced. (author)