Research activities (RTD)

CONFIDENCE aims to improve decision making for the protection of the population affected by nuclear emergencies and to minimise disruption of normal living conditions. This will be achieved through the reduction of uncertainties, where practicable, and the development of approaches to deal with uncertainty information. It will use a multidisciplinary approach dealing with all aspects regarding the radiological situation following an accidental release, from the prognosis of dispersion and its spatial-temporal evolution, to the offsite consequences, and the decision making to select, implement and evaluate remediation strategies, including the viewpoints of stakeholders. Some of the innovative software solutions will be integrated into Decision Support Systems (DSS) for operational use in the nuclear emergency management. These revised DSS will be used to develop scenarios that are key within CONFIDENCE’s work plan.

• Tackle uncertainties in the pre- and early release phase of the accident, by (i) identifying and ranking the main sources of uncertainties; (ii) characterizing and quantifying their effect on simulation results (e.g., activity concentrations, dose assessment, reference levels); and (iii) proposing practical solutions to better take into account these uncertainties in an emergency response context (WP1)
• Develop comprehensive software tools for the quick and efficient assessment of cancer risk to affected populations to be used as an input in the overall decision making process (WP2)
• Develop approaches and tools integrating external and internal dosimetric monitoring data to obtain a comprehensive picture of the radiological situation and link it with dose simulations and risk assessment tools to support decision making (e.g. for medical screening needs) (WP2)
• Improve the capabilities of radioecological models used to predict activity concentrations in foodstuffs and to better characterise, and where possible, reduce uncertainties (WP3)
• Engage national stakeholders to improve the preparedness and response in the transition phase, and to identify and reduce the uncertainties in the subsequent management of the long-term exposure situation, reflecting requirements from the new European Basic Safety Standards (WP4)
• Identify social and ethical issues related to uncertainty management in emergency and post-accident situations and clarify how stakeholders at the various levels deal with uncertainty in their decision making processes (WP5)
• Support and improve communication of uncertainties (WP5 and WP6) and facilitate robust decision making taking into account the variability of the radiological situation and decision makers’ preferences (WP6)
• Develop training courses and educational material for professionals and students related to the issues and activities addressed in CONFIDENCE (WP7)