the Research and Experience Report 2004 – HSK-AN-5437

Developments in the technical and legal basis of nuclear oversight

Switzerland’s new Nuclear Energy Act (KEG) requires the relevant authorities to provide the public with regular information on the state of nuclear facilities. Our previous reports already took account of this requirement.

However, in the future, we shall provide four separate reports every year, each covering a specific area of our surveillance. The previous Annual Report of the Inspectorate will now take the form of an oversight report on safety and radiation protection in Swiss nuclear facilities. It will describe and assess the main operating events and incidents, the associated remedial and maintenance work, the results of in-service inspections, radiological data, together with emergency exercises and training in the various nuclear facilities. It will also report on transport and disposal activities.

In addition, we will publish a «Radiation Protection Report» with details of radiation levels inside and outside Swiss nuclear facilities. The third report will be a «Business Report » of the Inspectorate, with details of our financial situation and an interim assessment of the targets set out in the Performance Agreement.

The present report corresponds to the previous Research Report. It has been significantly expanded and in describing the work undertaken by the Inspectorate in 2004 in research, incident analyses, international cooperation and regulation it shows how the Inspectorate is adapting the principles underpinning its oversight activities to reflect the global state of science and technology.

Regulatory safety research plays a central role in this respect. It serves to identify and develop knowledge and expertise so that it can be made available for regulatory purposes. Chapter 1 is an evaluation of the individual research projects in which the Inspectorate has been involved in 2004. The full research reports are contained in Appendix A.