Comparing radioactive waste regulatory research and policy in nine countries

摘要

This paper summarises the results of a survey of regulatory research policy in nine countries with well developed radioactive waste disposal programmes.The survey was conducted to provide comparative information for a review of the radioactive waste disposal research policy of the UK regulator (the Environment Agency).The Survey considered issues of overall regulatory research policy,organisation and budgeting,research output,and dialogue.The Environment Agency formulates its research programme in a similar way to regulators in other countries,and its proportion of collaborative research falls in the middle of the range of responses to our survey.However,the Environment Agency contracts out a higher proportion of its research activities than any other country surveyed other than Switzerland.As in the other countries surveyed,it publishes and makes publicly available a high proporation of its research output.However,it has tended to have less dialogue with proponents or with the public than many of the other organisations surveyed.