Roadmap for use of Euratom access rights to Jules Horowitz Reactor experimental capacity

This action should lead to the creation of the Roadmap covering at least 15 years from the start of the 1^st irradiation campaign at JHR, with a goal to assure proper and effective use of the Euratom access rights by research consortia funded through Euratom indirect actions. This Roadmap should include more detailed irradiation plan for the 1^st 4-years period of JHR operation. The Roadmap is supposed to take into account availability of the specific experimental rigs at different stages of JHR operation. The Roadmap should comprise an analysis of the financial model to be used for funding irradiation experiments. It is expected that the strategic research documents of the relevant European groupings (e.g. NUGENIA, EERA Joint Programme on Nuclear Materials[[http://nugenia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/sria2013_web.pdf]] [[http://www.eera-jpnm.eu/filesharer/documents/Vision Paper - EERA JP Nuclear Materials - February 2015.pdf]] [[http://www.eera-jpnm.eu/filesharer/documents/]]) are taken into account for the Roadmap creation.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the Euratom Programme up to EUR 1.1 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The JRC is expected to participate in this action to ensure that it covers the full use of the Euratom access right while taking into account the JRC planned activities. In such participation JRC staff and operational costs will be covered by JRC budget as appropriate.

The Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR) is a new Material Testing Reactor to be used for scientific studies dealing with materials and nuclear fuels behaviour under high neutron flux, which should help to enhance safety of existing and future nuclear installations. JHR is in the advanced construction phase and it is expected that the first irradiation campaign in the reactor would start in the first half of the 2020 decade. It is expected that JHR will operate for at least 30 years.

JHR is an international endeavour, with the strong European basis. France is the main contributor in the JHR Consortium [[EURATOM, represented by the European Commission, has an observer status at JHR Consortium.]], and with several other European countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Spain, Sweden, UK) plus Israel and India, they form a consortium able to build and to operate this research reactor according to the highest safety standards. Three service contracts have been signed by Euratom with the JHR operator. These service contracts together provide for the acquisition of 5.15% of the access rights of the total irradiation capacity of JHR to be used in the indirect actions (4.15%[[Subject to implementation of Other Action 6 under this Work Programme, Euratom indirect actions will have 5% of access rights of JHR irradiation capacity.]]) and direct actions (1.0%) of the Euratom research and training programmes.

A 4-year periodic planning, with mid-term revision, is foreseen for the irradiation campaigns. Members of the JHR Consortium already started an analysis of their irradiation needs for the 1^st 4-year irradiation plan. An action is therefore necessary to support creation of the Roadmap for use of Euratom access rights to JHR experimental capacity by the European nuclear materials and fuels research community.

This action should bring together all key actors involved in JHR and define the strategic roadmap for at least 15 years. This will facilitate planning of the JHR irradiation campaigns while ensuring optimal use of the Euratom access rights to the JHR experimental capacity.