The central aim of this workshop is to explore how insights from the social sciences and humanities can be used to inform the decision-making of practitioners in nuclear energy organisations. The workshop will be held at NEA Headquarters in Paris on December 12-13, 2019. Selected papers from the workshop will be published in a special issue of the nuclear engineering journal, Nuclear Technology. The workshop and special issue are part of a broader NEA project that explores what practitioners in the nuclear energy sector can learn from the social sciences and humanities.
Nuclear energy’s challenges are frequently described as having a significant ‘social’ dimension. These challenges include failures to site nuclear power plants and used nuclear fuel repositories, or, more broadly, secure support and approval for sustaining or expanding the use of nuclear energy. A negative perception of nuclear energy is frequently cited by nuclear engineers as the source of these challenges. Still other problems are believed to be the result of institutional failures and managerial difficulties. These include delays in construction projects and escalation of plant costs, the slow pace of development and commercialisation of new nuclear energy technologies and failures of regulatory institutions.
More specifically, through the workshop and the corresponding special issue, we seek to:
We have accepted papers on three broad themes:
A number of researchers have recently been leading or have completed research projects with a particular focus on the work of practitioners in the nuclear energy sector. Authors of this set of papers are invited to describe their motivations for embarking on these research projects, describe their research questions, their findings as well as recommendations (if any) for practitioners arising from these findings. Authors are further asked to reflect on and describe their methodologies or approaches for transforming their research findings into lessons and recommendations for practitioners. Papers on this theme are broadly expected to focus on reactor design and development, regulation and nuclear energy policy.
In select organisations, social science researchers have been working alongside practitioners. In these settings, insights derived from the work of these researchers have had an impact on the work of practitioners. Authors of these papers are asked to describe how the decisions to embed social science researchers within their respective organizations were made, the work done by these researchers within their respective organisations, how the insights from these researchers have been transformed into recommendations for practitioners, challenges encountered in implementing these insights as well as further opportunities for transforming practice that have not yet been exploited. Authors of these papers may choose to draw on theoretical and methodological resources that examine the intellectual and practical considerations of translating research into lessons and recommendations for practice.
Practitioners in the nuclear energy sector around the world are searching for opportunities for innovation in both the technical and the social elements of nuclear reactor systems and their supporting infrastructures. Some examples of the hoped for non-technological innovations include new mechanisms for funding the development of nuclear energy technologies, novel mechanisms for financing construction projects and redesign of institutions for encouraging nuclear innovation and regulating nuclear energy technologies. Through these papers we will review and explore current research on regulation and innovation. Wherever possible, authors are encouraged to identify those aspects of their research findings that are generalisable and that might suggest opportunities for institutional innovation in the nuclear energy sector.
For those who are interested the full call for papers can be found here
Key dates
For more information please contact Aditi Verma and Danielle Zayani
