17 research outputs found
Towards a strategic research agenda for social sciences and humanities in radiological protection
Reflecting a change in funding strategies for European research projects, and a commitment to the idea of responsible research and innovation in radiological protection (RP), a collective of research institutes and universities have developed a prospective Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in radiological protection. This is the first time such a research agenda has been proposed. This paper identifies six research lines of interest and concern: 1) Effects of social, psychological and economic aspects on RP behaviour; 2) Holistic approaches to the governance of radiological risks; 3) Responsible research and innovation in RP; 4) Stakeholder engagement and participatory processes in RP research, development, policy and practice; 5) Risk communication; and 6) RP cultures. These topics were developed through broad stakeholder consultation, in conjunction with activities carried out in the framework of various projects and initiatives (EU H2020 CONCERT programme, the EU FP7 projects OPERRA, PREPARE and EAGLE, the 2015-2018 RICOMET series of conferences, and the 2014 and 2016 International Symposia on Ethics of Environmental Health); as well as through dialogues with members of the European radiation protection research communities. The six research lines open opportunities to integrate a range of key social and ethical considerations into RP, thereby expanding research opportunities and programmes and fostering collaborative approaches to research and innovation
Revised Strategic Research Agenda for Social Sciences and Humanities in Radiation Protection
This document describes the research priorities and the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in radiation protection for the next 20 years. It also reports on the results of a first gap analysis.
The SSH SRA is a living document, under constant development through the engagement of the SSH community in radiation protection field and other stakeholders, especially technical and research platforms. To this end, the SSH community in radiation protection field will structure and enhance dialogue at the European level among the different stakeholders, fostering the sharing of knowledge and information among various disciplines working on aspects of radiation protection and identify the SSH research needs in the field of radiation protection. The objective of Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in radiation protection is to contribute towards improvement of the Radiation Protection (RP) system by coordinating European SSH research in the field of radiation protection; supporting education and training; knowledge management and sharing; and identifying SSH state of the art across domains. It is only by enabling SSH research to play a fuller and stronger role through a coordinated SRA mechanism that societal perspectives on research relating to radiation protection will be realised.
The SSH SRA has been developed through a broad stakeholder engagement process. The research topics to be included in the SSH SRA have been collected through various activities carried out in the H2020 projects CONCERT and the FP7 projects OPERRA, PREPARE and EAGLE, notably the RICOMET 2015, 2016 an RICOMET 2017 conferences and Symposium on Ethics of Environmental Health, as well as in dialogues with members of the radiation protection platforms, carried out in a context of the CONCERT 2.6 task group. These research topics have been prioritised for the first time at the Radiation Protection Week in Oxford (19-23 September 2016) with task 2.6 members, SSH community and platforms, and further debated upon at the RICOMET Conference 2017 (June 27th to 29th, Vienna) with a large audience. The version summarised in this report is the most recent revision on of the SSH SRA (D2.8 and D2.10)
Towards a strategic research agenda for social sciences and humanities in radiological protection
peer reviewedReflecting a change in funding strategies for European research projects, and a commitment to the idea of responsible research and innovation in radiological protection (RP), a collective of research institutes and universities have developed a prospective Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in radiological protection. This is the first time such a research agenda has been proposed. This paper identifies six research lines of interest and concern: 1) Effects of social, psychological and economic aspects on RP behaviour; 2) Holistic approaches to the governance of radiological risks; 3) Responsible research and innovation in RP; 4) Stakeholder engagement and participatory processes in RP research, development, policy and practice; 5) Risk communication; and 6) RP cultures. These topics were developed through broad stakeholder consultation, in conjunction with activities carried out in the framework of various projects and initiatives (EU H2020 CONCERT programme, the EU FP7 projects OPERRA, PREPARE and EAGLE, the 2015-2018 RICOMET series of conferences, and the 2014 and 2016 International Symposia on Ethics of Environmental Health); as well as through dialogues with members of the European radiation protection research communities. The six research lines open opportunities to integrate a range of key social and ethical considerations into RP, thereby expanding research opportunities and programmes and fostering collaborative approaches to research and innovation
Enhancement of the ERMIN urban dose and remediation model to account for physicochemical properties of contamination
On the current needs in European decision support tools for contaminated areas
As part of the ongoing European project NERIS-TP, a revision has been made of some
parameters influencing dose estimates in the European emergency management decision
support systems RODOS and ARGOS. On the basis of survey data, the estimates of the time
fractions typically spent indoors and outdoors over longer time periods have been revised.
On the basis of measurement data, also new values for the natural ventilation rate
governing early ingression of contaminants into dwellings have been derived for different
parts of Europe. Other potential parameterisation improvements for the decision support
systems are discussed
Updates of the atmospheric dispersion models inside the Local Scale Model Chain of RODOS regarding particles
The CONFIDENCE project
The H2020 CONFIDENCE Project aims to close existing gaps in several areas of emergency management
and long-term rehabilitation associated with large-scale accidental releases of radioactivity into the environment.
It concentrates on the early and transition phases of an emergency, but considers also longer-
term decisions made during these phases.
The work-programme of CONFIDENCE was defined with the objective to understand, reduce and cope with
the uncertainty of meteorological and radiological data and their further propagation in decision support
systems. This includes atmospheric dispersion, dose estimation, foodchain modelling and countermeasure
simulations models. Consideration of social, ethical and communication aspects related to uncertainties
is a key aspect of the project. Improvements in modelling and combining simulation with monitoring
will help gain a more comprehensive picture of the radiological situation and will clearly improve decision
making under uncertainties. Decision making principles and methods will be investigated, ranging from
formal decision aiding techniques to simulation based approaches. These will be demonstrated and tested
in stakeholder workshops applying the simulation tools developed within CONFIDENCE. A comprehensive
education and training programme is fully linked with the research activities.
To date, ensemble modelling for atmospheric dispersion has started, monitoring approaches have been
developed and advanced foodchain models investigated. Stakeholder panels were set up to investigate
the development of sensible countermeasure strategies, define important attributes for decision making and
first investigations about mental models (theoretical framework to understand behaviour of people) were performed.
Multi-criteria decision tools have been improved for uncertainty handling and our first training courses
have been prepared [https://eu-neris.net/home/newsletters/171-confidence-training-course-2.html].
CONFIDENCE is part of CONCERT. This project has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme
2014-2018 under grant agreement No 662287