Intercomparison programme of dosimeters used in the European Community for radiological protection

For 10 years now the Commission of the European Communities has cooperated with the national institutes on the organization of intercomparisons in the field of personal dosimetry. One of the tasks of a group of personal dosimetry experts, made up of technical specialists from all the Member States of the European Community, is to draw up the rules in accordance with which this intercomparison programme must be carried out. The programme follows two main avenues: comparison of the institutes responsible for assessing the doses received by workers; joint study of dosimetry principles and behavior of the various measurement principles under the same irradiation conditions. Several comparisons have been made using photon dosimeters and neutron dosimeters. Thermoluminescent dosimeters have been studied jointly. An analysis has been carried out of the behavior of various dosimeters irradiated by monochromatic rays between 10 and 300 keV and rays of 9 MeV. An account will be given of the origins of these programme, its development, results and the conclusions drawn so far, and a brief outline will be given of the work to be done in future