Hello and welcome to this online training course.
My name is Neill Taylor.
For several years I was head of the Nuclear Safety division at ITER.
During this course, I’ll be presenting some information to you, with the aim of developing
a sound and sustainable nuclear safety culture in the ITER project.
Here, we are focusing on the more hands-on part of the project activities, in manufacturing,
construction, assembly and commissioning.
Attending this course should last no longer than about one hour.
You can stop the course presentation at any time and continue when it is more convenient
for you.
First, I’ll give you a brief overview on the course content.
We’ll start by presenting some basic technical information.
This is important for understanding the global context of your work and the related impact
on nuclear safety and the supporting culture.
Then we discuss why the nuclear industry is different from others, such as the chemical
or the aviation industry.
As you must be aware, their activities also entail risks for people and the environment.
Of course, in the ITER project we will have to achieve safety objectives so that during
ITER operation the nuclear risks will be controlled.
Consequently, in the project many safety functions must be implemented to mitigate these risks.
However, achieving safety objectives relies not only on the hard implementation in ITER
itself (including its buildings, its equipment, and the related software), but also to a large
degree on the safety culture in the project.
Here we must think about the safety culture in all related organizations, like the ITER
Organization, and also sub-contractors like your own company.
So we will conclude our course by presenting how the behavior of management and of all
individual staff involved will contribute to a sound nuclear safety culture.
This will include yourself, so that finally you too will contribute substantially to the
success of the ITER project.
By the way, at several points during the course, you will have the opportunity to check your
understanding by answering some short questions.
Of course, we not only expect you to learn a lot through this course and extend your
knowledge.
We also expect that you will apply this newly learned knowledge in your daily work.
That means that your attitude, your motivation and your behavior will be adapted to help
sustain a healthy safety culture.
After working through the course, you should be able not only to describe the main mission
of ITER, but also to explain why ITER will become a nuclear facility.
So, while explaining some nuclear risks that must be managed, you should also be able to
list some of the related protective measures, or, as we’ll call them later, some ITER
safety functions.
This will lead us to nuclear safety culture – why is it so important, what is it, and
what are its main elements?
Very important: you should be able to list some responsibilities of managers and individuals
regarding nuclear safety culture.
And which personal behaviors will reinforce this culture.
This will contribute to a healthy and sustainable nuclear safety culture.
At the end, we’ll ask you for your comments on the course, and also check whether you’ve
succeeded in achieving the training objectives as listed here.
This will be done through a short quiz, where we’ll ask you about the main topics that
I’ll present during the course.