NEA Mandates and Structures

Expert Group on Public Communication of Nuclear Regulatory Organisations (EGPC)

Chair(s):	Ossi LANG, Finland	Secretary:	Minori KATO (minori.kato@oecd-nea.org)
Vice-Chair(s):	Rhonda WALKER-SISTTIE, Canada Agnieszka MAKOSA, Poland Andreas VON SCHMALENSEE, Sweden Jane LOUGHRAN, United Kingdom Diane SCRENCI, United States
Member(s):	All NEA member countries^*
	Russia (Suspended*)
	^*Russian Federation suspended pursuant to a decision of the OECD Council.
Full participant(s):	European Commission Under the NEA Statute
Participant(s):	India
Observer(s)(International Organisation):	International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) By agreement
Date of creation:	30 June 2001
End of mandate:	31 December 2024

Mandate (Document reference):

Summary Record of the 12^th Meeting of the CNRA [NEA/SEN/NRA(2001)1]
Summary Record of the 1^st Meeting of the WGPC [NEA/SEN/NRA/WGPC(2001)2]
Summary Record of the 2005 CNRA Summer meeting [NEA/SEN/NRA(2005)3]
CNRA Operating Guidelines, June 2006 [NEA/CNRA/R(2006)3]
Summary Record of the 2006 CNRA Summer Meeting [NEA/SEN/NRA(2006)3]
Summary Record of the 23^rd Meeting of the CNRA [NEA/SEN/NRA(2010)2]
CNRA Operating Plan and Guidelines (2011-2016) [NEA/CNRA/R(2011)2]
Summary record of the 38^th Meeting of the CNRA, held on 4-5 December 2017 [NEA/SEN/NRA(2017)5]
2017-2022 CNRA Operating Plan and Guidelines [NEA/CNRA/R(2017)5]
Participant Status of India in the CNRA and its subsidiary bodies: 2018 Update of the NEA Participation Plan [NEA/NE(2018)8] and official letter received from India on 15 October 2018 confirming its acceptance of Participant Status in the CNRA and its subsidiary bodies
Summary record of the 44th Meeting of the CNRA [NEA/SEN/NRA(2020)2]
Operating Plan and Guidelines for the Nuclear Energy Agency Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities: 2017-2022 [NEA/CNRA/R(2017)5/REV2]
Participant Status of India in the CNRA and its subsidiary bodies: 2018 Update of the NEA Participation Plan [NEA/NE(2018)8] and official letter received from India on 15 October 2018 confirming its acceptance of Participant Status in the CNRA and its subsidiary bodies
Change of denomination from the Working Group on Public Communication of Nuclear Regulatory Organisations (WGPC) to the Expert Group on Public Communication of Nuclear Regulatory Organisations (EGPC) - Summary Record of the 48^th CNRA meeting held on 30 November and 1 December 2022 in Tokyo, Japan [forthcoming]
Mandate of the the Expert Group on Public Communication of Nuclear Regulatory Organisations (EGPC) [NEA/SEN/NRA(2023)2] [NEA/SEN/NRA(2023)4]

Mandate (Document extract):

Extract from document NEA/SEN/NRA(2023)4

Background

Public communication and stakeholder engagement are essential to every aspect of effective regulatory activities. In addition, the relationships and interactions of the regulators with the public and other stakeholders have a mutual impact on the communication of the regulatory organisation and others, as they are all part of a wider interconnected system.

The Committee of Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) first established a Working Group on Public Communication of Nuclear Regulatory Organisations (WGPC) in 2001 to provide a forum for nuclear regulatory organisation (NRO) communicators and outreach officers to exchange information, experience and best practices. Due to the importance of public communication to the effectiveness of a regulatory organisation, this group was subsequently restructured as the Expert Group on Public Communication of Nuclear Regulatory Organisations (EGPC) to provide a forum for member countries to collaboratively address complex issues regarding public communication and stakeholder engagement to improve regulatory effectiveness and public understanding.

Scope and Mandate

Guided by the CNRA, the aim of the EGPC is to exchange information and experiences at the regulatory level and to provide practical, innovative tools that support public communication and stakeholder engagement by the regulatory organisation within the wider interconnected systems for information sharing.

The EGPC fosters discussion and the exchange of information, and considers various practical and innovative approaches to developing, sustaining, and enhancing effective public communication within the wider interconnected system to ensure safety, transparency and trust building. The EGPC is focused on public communication and stakeholder engagement related to regulatory activities, whilst appreciating the mutual impact of the operator and other stakeholders within the wider interconnected system.

Objectives

The EGPC will:

identify approaches to improve communication and stakeholder engagement of NROs through the exchange of information and experience, particularly on questions/matters that are not covered by other professional forums; and
provide a forum for NROs to share and discuss contemporary communications matters and highlight lessons learned and best practices;
support the practical implementation of improved communications within each organisation/country as appropriate; and
maintain a network among its members in order to facilitate consistent and relevant NRO public communication between NEA member countries and observers.

Working methods

To achieve its objectives, the EGPC will:

share information, news, documents, data, views, policies, ideas, and experiences in the field of public communication and stakeholder communications;
review developments, progress, techniques, tools, procedures and achievements related to how nuclear regulators communicate with the public and other stakeholders;
manage activities through bi-annual meetings; and
report directly to the NEA Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA).

Membership

Members of the EGPC are preferably experts on public communication from the regulatory organisations (e.g. spokespersons, communicators, outreach officers).

Interactions

The EGPC will establish a framework for engagement with other NEA bodies to closely co-ordinate and discuss issues of cross-cutting interests identified by the group.

It will work closely with other NEA bodies, such as the High-Level Group on Stakeholder engagement, Trust, Transparency and Social Sciences (HLG-SET), Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC), and the Working Group on Human and Organisational Factors (WGHOF) to collaborate on areas of mutual interest, and to prevent overlap and duplication as appropriate. The EGPC will also work closely with other CNRA working groups to address crosscutting challenges and to provide insight on public communication and stakeholder engagement that support regulatory organisations` oversight practices, as appropriate.

The EGPC will also co-ordinate, as appropriate, with other international organisations (e.g. the IAEA and the European Commission) and international non-governmental organisations (e.g. WANO).

Deliverables

The EGPC will produce collaboratively created consensus documents (e.g., green booklets, technical notes, guidelines or aide-memoires) to improve the communication of regulatory organisations. The EGPC will also organise workshops on public information, communication, risk communication and stakeholder relations.