Research on nuclear safety and nuclear waste management supports the safe use of nuclear energy

The SAFIR2022 and KYT2022 research programmes launched by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment develop Finnish expertise in nuclear safety and nuclear waste management. The Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) is represented on the management boards of the programmes and in their research area steering groups. The programmes are coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.

Marja-Leena Järvinen, Principal Advisor at STUK and Chair of the SAFIR2022 management board, emphasises the research programmes’ impact on Finnish safety competence. She also believes that it is important that the authority overseeing nuclear safety and the long-term safety of the final disposal of nuclear waste is involved in planning and supervising the programmes.  “Without research programmes like SAFIR2022 and KYT2022, Finland could not develop competence and tools to support the authority,” she points out.

The research programmes and their publicly funded predecessors also offer vital opportunities for further training to organizations providing technological support services to STUK. Such organizations include VTT and the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), among others. Both organizations allocate considerable resources to improving the national research infrastructure, which is also supported in the programmes.

The KYT2022 and SAFIR2022 programme projects include participation in extensive international research projects, conducting their tests in Finland and obtaining information which cannot be produced with national resources.

Most of the funding from Finnish nuclear power companies

In the KYT2022 and SAFIR2022 programmes, a total of MEUR 30 was used for research and infrastructure development in 2019–2020. The National Nuclear Waste Management Fund (VYT) was the programmes’ main funder and VTT has also made significant financial contributions to the programme. The assets that the Nuclear Waste Management Fund has assigned to the programmes are collected from Finnish nuclear power companies on the basis of the Nuclear Energy Act. The results of the funded projects are public.

Research to be joined in 2023

The KYT2022 and SAFIR2022 programmes will jointly arrange an online Interim Seminar on 18–19 March 2021. The Seminar will be attended by more than 400 nuclear safety experts and researchers from different countries. The Seminar will showcase the main achievements and scientific results of the programme.

Research in the nuclear industry has been carried out under national programmes already for more than 30 years. A new six-year programme SAFER2028 will be launched in 2023. This programme will join the national research on nuclear safety and nuclear waste management into one research programme. “It is great that the research will be joined into one national programme, especially now when the final disposal of nuclear waste is progressing towards the operating licence phase and new kinds of research topics are current”, says Jaakko Leino, who chaired the KYT2022 programme management group.