The Committee on Radiological Protection and Public Health (CRPPH) of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency invites you to attend the second Science and Values in Radiological Protection workshop, to be held at Vaux de Cernay, France, Monday 30 November - Wednesday 2 December 2009. This workshop will be organised in co-operation with the IRSN and benefits from joint sponsorship by CEPN, IRSN, MEEDDM and OECD Nuclear Energy Agency.
The workshop will provide a forum for exchange of information and experience among regulators, scientists and governmental and non-governmental organisations in the areas of radiological protection and public health, and will be the second in the series of NEA workshops on this subject.
The first Science and Values in Radiological Protection workshop was held in Helsinki in January 2008 and hosted by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority of Finland (STUK). The workshop focus was on developing a shared understanding between various stakeholders and identifying the elements of a framework more suited to the integration of new scientific and technological developments and socio-political considerations in radiological protection.
During the first workshop, a "What if?" format was used to discuss the scientific aspects in some key areas of emerging radiological protection science. The results of the dialogue among the attending regulators, scientists and NGOs were seen as having very positively improved mutual understanding of issues, viewpoints and possible implications. It was also seen as having begun to identify elements of a process and framework for the better integration of the social and scientific dimensions of radiological protection.
Re-emphasising that radiological protection is a combination of science and value judgments, the CRPPH agreed at its sixty-sixth annual meeting to continue the useful discussions begun in Helsinki by organising the second workshop. Here, however, the committee agreed to focus on radiological protection issues that are currently facing us, and that continue to pose challenges to our world today. As such, the second workshop in this series will be designed to address a series of current radiological protection issues from the standpoint not of "What if?", but rather, "What now?".
Day 1 (30 November 2009)
Opening (09:00 - 09:30)
Chair: Shizuyo Kusumi, Nuclear Safety Commission, Japan
| Welcome Address from IRSN | Jacques Repussard |
| Welcome Address from CEPN | Thierry Schneider |
| Welcome Address from NEA | Uichiro Yoshimura |
Introduction (09:30 - 10:30)
Chair: Shizuyo Kusumi, Nuclear Safety Commission, Japan
This talk should make the link with the Science and Values in Radiological Protection workshop in Helsinki, and lay out the overall goals of the present workshop. It should explain the format of plenary/break-out sessions.
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This talk should give more detail on the choice of the three case topics and the linkage to public health concerns in radiological protection. It should make a specific link with Helsinki workshop findings and the CRPPH Expert Group on the Public Health Perspective in Radiological Protection work.
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This talk should briefly review the radiation protection concerns and communication needs of civil society. It will point out different categories of stakeholders and their understanding of radiation risks implied by the three case topics. It will address the question of how radiological protection professionals can better identify and respond to civil society concerns.
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Coffee break (10:30-11:00)
Session 1: Setting the scene (11:00 - 15:30)
Chair: Michel Bourguignon, Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), France
Holistic presentations of science, values, regulation and public health policy, NGO viewpoints… An informed view of “where we stand” on each case topic following the Helsinki workshop.
Lunch (13:00-14:30)
Coffee break (15:30-16:00)
Break-out sessions 1st part - Issues surrounding current approaches (16:00 – 18:00)
This session will deepen the discussion and widen the process begun at Helsinki, regarding the new data, phenomena and observations that stimulate us to ask whether current public health and regulatory approaches in each topical area are still adequate, or whether they may need revision. The focus of this session is thus on scientific aspects which may induce a need for paradigm change.
See possible questions for break-out sessions
Break (18:00-18:30)
Evening session 1: Stakeholder platform opportunity (18:30-20:00)
Chair: Ola Holmberg, IAEA, Austria
One of the workshop objectives is to foster dialogue between radiological protection professionals, researchers, regulators… and other stakeholders from interested publics in order to deepen discussion on points of interest. In order to maximize stakeholders’ benefit in attending the workshop, a platform for communicating and discussing relevant stakeholder views and concerns is offered in this evening context. The on-topic interventions are intended to cover relevant subjects that may not be directly addressed during the rest of the workshop (e.g., risk communication, etc.). It is intended that these discussions will take place in a relaxed and informal atmosphere
This evening session will focus on aspects of dose regulations in radiodiagnostic and radiotherapeutic fields, ALARA in medicine and other issues related to medical exposures. Discussion is intended to be linked to introductory talk in Session 1 on Public Health Perspective in Radiological Protection in Challenging Topical Areas.
(Kazuko Ohno, Kyoto Medical College of Science)
Dinner (20:00-)
Break-out sessions 2nd part – Values underlying favored approaches (9:00 – 12:00)
Across countries or across stakeholders, we can observe that a single problem yields different solutions. What are the views, preferences and value judgments that are reflected in those solutions? This session will help understand the alternatives favored by different actors, by identifying the factors each actor is weighting. The focus of the session is on extra-scientific aspects (e.g. economic concerns; societal values…) that influence the choices made in each context, and which potentially could be sources of friction among different societal actors or stakeholders.
See possible questions for break-out sessions
Coffee break (10:30-11:00)
Lunch (12:00-13:30)
Session 2:
Societal values and regulatory aspects: views from different perspective (13:30-15:00)
Chair: Simon Carroll, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences and Uppsala University, Sweden
Parallel rapporteurs meeting (13:30-15:00) (to prepare/harmonize Summary presentations of Break-out sessions)
Session 3:
Summary reports of Break-out sessions (15:00-18:30)
Chair: Kazuo Sakai, National Institute of Radiological Science, Japan
Coffee Break (16:00 – 16:30)
Break (18:30-19:00)
Evening session 2: Stakeholder platform opportunity (19:00-20:30)
Chair: Simon Carroll, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences and Uppsala University, Sweden
Continuing discussions started during the Evening session 1 with focus on different aspects of NGO and society perceptions of the radiological protection regulatory framework, ways of communicating about novel scientific phenomena, and differing perceptions about the need for and effectiveness of regulatory actions, etc. Discussion is intended to be linked to introductory talk in Session 1 on Civil Society Needs.
(Abel Gonzales, Argentina)
Dinner (20:30-)
Session 4:
Plenary panel discussion on topical issues from Break-out sessions - exchange of views (9:00-12:00)
Chair and moderator: Claire Cousins, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, UK and Chair of ICRP Main Commission
This session, arranged as a plenary panel discussion, will synthesize the main recommendations of the workshop and also provide an open platform for exchange of views. Audience members will be given the opportunity here to discuss openly radiation protection principles, regulatory approaches and perspectives in the context of emerging and identified scientific phenomena.
Panelists: moderators, speakers of Introduction and Sessions 1, 2 (moderators and selected speakers)
Coffee Break (10:30 – 11:00)
Closing of the workshop (12:00-12:30)
Uichiro Yoshimura (NEA)
In co-operation with the IRSN, Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire, France.
Sponsored by MEEDDM, Ministère de l'Écologie, de l'Energie, du Développement durable et de la Mer, France
Also sponsored by CEPN, Centre d'étude sur l'évaluation de la Protection dans le domaine nucléaire, France.
edward.lazo@oecd-nea.org
