The sixth Euratom framework programme 2003–2006: a driving force for the construction of the Nuclear European Research Area

Abstract

At the Lisbon 2000 summit, a strategic goal was proposed for the European Union: “to become the most competitive knowledge-based economy with more and better employment and social cohesion by 2010”. Overall, in particular in the community of nuclear fission research, this EC initiative was well accepted by the main stakeholders. In Europe, the main stakeholders (i.e. suppliers and/or demanders) of nuclear research are actually: the research organisations (with mixed public/private funding), the manufacturing industry (or vendors), the utilities (or engineering companies), the regulatory bodies (or technical safety organisations) and the academia (or universities). In response to the Lisbon 2000 objectives, Commissioner P. BUSQUIN launched the concept of European Research Area (ERA) which sets also the frame for the FP-6. In this invited lecture, research and training in nuclear fission are looked at from a nuclear ERA perspective with emphasis on the three success factors of any European integration policy, namely: needs, vision and instruments, that ought to be strongly shared amongst the stakeholders in the EU-25. The following questions are addressed. What is driving the current EU trend towards more research, more education and more training in general? Regarding nuclear fission, in particular, who are the end-users of Euratom “research and training” and what are their expectations ( needs) from EU programmes? Do all stakeholders share the same vision about European research and training in nuclear fission? What are the instruments proposed by the Commission to the end-users to conduct joint research programmes? The above questions are all linked to nuclear knowledge management. It is shown that, in Community research, production of knowledge remains the most important objective, be it to generate products or services. However, dissemination/transfer (e.g. education and training) and exploitation (e.g. innovation) of knowledge become equally important as production, if one wants all energy options to remain open for the future generations. The answers to these questions and the examples given are taken primarily from reactor safety research (i.e. the area covered by FISA-2003) but are thought to be easily extrapolable to the other areas of nuclear fission research (i.e. radwaste management, innovative reactor concepts and safeguards, radiation protection, medical applications). In conclusion, amongst the stakeholders there seems to be a wide consensus about needs and instruments but a real common vision about a EU nuclear research strategy is still lacking. As a result, it is felt that European research in nuclear fission is still too much fragmented across Europe. It has not yet reached the “critical mass” necessary to levy the governmental and industrial resources needed to face all challenges posed by an ageing nuclear power park and its renewal by the year 2015 (estimated end of lifetime).