International cooperation activities of KORAD including mid-term and long-term strategy of international cooperation for radioactive waste management

As radioactive waste management has been a challenging issue in every country using nuclear energy, international cooperation is an important tool for competency building of each organization responsible for radioactive waste management and related activities. Efforts have been increasingly made in order to find out the solutions to safe and effective management of radioactive waste by means from information and knowledge sharing to joint work among the nations. Under this circumstance, KORAD established the mid-term and long-term strategy of international cooperation, consistent with the roadmap and plan of radioactive waste management, assuming that international cooperation activities should have the function of support to the radioactive waste management project. The international strategy was set as result of the analysis of political, economic, social and technical environment, level of competency of KORAD and overseas implementing organizations, and analysis of SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat). Based on the strategy, KORAD has carried out various international cooperation activities, such as having cooperation meetings, launching joint works, and initiating IAEA projects by sending the expert and providing extra budgetary contribution to IAEA. Also, the international cooperation strategy is regularly revised to enhance its feasibility by reflecting the changes of internal and external environment regarding radioactive waste management. The process and result of the international cooperation strategy-setting will be introduced and its implementation will be presented in detail at the paper. (author)