INCLUDING has been an orchestrated action among the project partners to enhance the Member States’ collaboration on a sensitive matter like Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies (RNEs). The range of intervention of the project is broad as required by the plurality of scenarios that may initiate a RNE and by the set of actions to put in place for the prevention, immediate response, second response and recovery phases. In this framework it is essential for Member States, as also dictated by the “Action Plan to enhance preparedness against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security risks” issued by the EC on 18.10.2017 to:
• Steadily update training and exercise programs to realistic scenarios and promote the uptake of new technologies and procedures;
• Plan an efficient Pan-European collaboration scheme for sharing expertise and equipment and aimed at improving the mutual assistance program with a more rapid resources mobilization;
• Plan and execute joint exercises to test and evaluate a common approach to possible intervention scenarios and to promote standardization and interoperability.
The INCLUDING workplan has been specifically tailored to address all these challenges and from the the Nuclear Safety and Security perspectives, as in the definition of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In this framework, INCLUDING contributed to the implementation in Members States of the IAEA guidelines of the establishment of a Nuclear Safety and Security Culture Regime. The contribution from INCLUDING has been, in particular, the development of a Federation of testbeds where to test in simulated but realistic scenarios innovative technological solutions and to raise the awareness of Nuclear Safety and Security organizations about the usefulness of training and exercise programs. With raising international tensions involving threats to nuclear installations and alleged deviations from non-nuclear proliferation treaties, the project marked a timely action to enhance the Member States capacities and capabilities to prevent and react to worst case scenarios.
As a final outcome, the project elaborated a series of recommendations that can be of help for the plurality of stakeholders in the RN domain. The recommendations are centered on specific aspects of RN emergencies, like Medical aspects, uptake of new technologies, Civil-military cooperation, radiological crime scene management and others. The recommendations have been published on the last project newsletter available on the project website (www.including-h2020.eu).
