Sub-networks

The following definition has been proposed by the EAN Working Group on ALARA Culture. It has been endorsed by the members of the EAN Steering Group.

The development of a common ALARA culture among radiation protection professionals and other stakeholders in Europe is one of the fundamental objectives followed and shared by all EAN members. Moreover the 10^th EAN Workshop on "Experience and new Developments in Implementing ALARA in Occupational, Public and Patient Exposures" (Prague, 2006) identified that there is no universally agreed definition of what ALARA culture is, despite the wide acceptance of the need for such a culture. It was then recommended that EAN should develop a definition of "ALARA culture".

In this context, the EAN Steering Group proposed to give its support to the work engaged by the IRPA working group on "Improvement of the Radiation Protection Culture" which was launched at the occasion of the IRPA 12 Associate Societies Forum held in Buenos Aires in October 2008 with the perspective to prepare IRPA Guiding Principles on that topic. The EAN proposal was officially accepted by IRPA in May 2009.

The objective of the WG is to maintain and further develop the high level of radiation protection by

• promoting the ALARA culture in all fields of application,
• implementing the ALARA principle into practice, and
• analysing feedback from implementing ALARA in various sectors.

The EAN WG ALARA Culture will produce a document, which will reflect the EAN position on the role of ALARA in the radiation protection culture. The document will be discussed and then endorsed by the Members of the network, and finally published on the EAN website.

The EAN position will be developed along the lines of the EAN Workshop recommendations on ALARA Culture and on the basis of the discussions of the WG ALARA Culture, the EAN Steering Committee, the subnetworks (ERPAN and EAN-NORMnet) and the input of the EAN cooperation partners (EFNDT, EFRS, ESR and EFOMP).

The first meeting of the Working Group took place 2^nd October 2009 in Rome. The findings of this meting were:

• The distinction between ALARA and good radiation protection is often difficult to make, as the optimisation principle is the central concept of radiological protection.

• Thus it may not be relevant to propose a specific definition of ALARA culture beside the definition of RP culture, but to identify the specific contribution of the ALARA approach in the radiation protection culture.

• The ALARA approach is the most important element in the RP culture because of the particularity of the linear dose-effect relationship without thresholds (LNT), new findings of new health effects due to ionising radiation, and the application of the precautionary principle.

• Implementation of the ALARA principle in practice is the major contribution to the RP culture. The implementation involves elements such as:
  • ALARA training,
  • commitment at all levels,
  • task planning: prediction of doses likely to be received during specific tasks or specific exposure situations,
  • dose evaluation and risk estimation (potential exposure situations),
  • analysis whether or not to further reduce doses, remediation actions and feedback,
  • relationship justification-optimisation, etc.

A short and simple definition of the ALARA approach to radiation protection culture has been developed

Context

The principle of optimisation in radiation protection has been published by the ICRP in the recommendation No. 22 for the first time in 1973. Since 1980 the ALARA principle has been part of the European Basic Safety Standards and has been progressively introduced into national regulations. Nowadays the effective radiation protection practice in the nuclear industry, research and related practices is not conceivable without its implementation in the practice. Therefore the ALARA principle is also an explicit requirement of both the most recent Council Directive 98/29 EURATOM laying down the Basic Safety Standards of Radiation Protection and the national regulations.

Although the ALARA principle has been integrated into various radiation protection programmes, particularly in the nuclear industry, standardised solutions or solutions generally applicable to the optimisation of the radiation protection practice have not been developed. However, the exchange of experience on techniques and tools applied effectively in optimisation practices can be very helpful in finding the most cost-effective measure of radiation protection in a given case. Therefore, in 1996, the European Commission has created the European ALARA Network (EAN) with the following objectives:

• To promote the wider and more uniform use of optimisation techniques in the various fields of application in Europe i.e. in industry, research, and the nuclear fuel cycle,
• To provide a focus and a mechanism from practical experience, and
• To propose topical issues of interest that should be the subject of European meetings, workshops or research projects and not least subject of appropriate regulations.

The Council Directive 98/29 EURATOM requires for the first time that workplaces in the non-nuclear industry also need to be subject to regulatory control if the presence of natural radiation sources can lead to a significant exposure of workers or members of the public which cannot be disregarded from the radiation protection point of view. Such workplaces are found in industries using or processing types of minerals or rocks containing significant amounts of natural radioactive elements (NORM industry). Other operations such as storage, application or disposal of residues result from the NORM or other industries containing enhanced concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides have to be included in the control, too.

The fundamental radiation protection principle of optimisation is of preferential importance for these specific work activities. However, the application of the optimisation principle is not yet generally considered as an element of common knowledge in the radiation protection practice of the NORM industry and related work activities. For that reason and bearing in mind the positive experiences in the previous EAN the European Commission launched a project in order to design a European ALARA Network for Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material, acronym EAN_NORM. The work plan of the project comprises particularly:

• Review of surveys conducted in the EU Member States aimed at identifying and assessing the situation in the NORM industry and at other operations mentioned above,
• Evaluation of the radiation protection practice in the NORM industry and at other operation and formulation of guidance on operational radiation protection,
• Development and maintenance of a Code of Practice in order to promote good radiation protection practice in the Member States,
• Organisation of an intensive exchange of views and experience on good radiation protection practice,
• Formulation of proposals to the European Commission on harmonization issues and areas of further work.

The European ALARA Network for NORM - EAN_NORM

The concept of the project was presented in the international conference NORM V held in Seville (Spain) from March 19^th to 22^nd, 2007. Further details of the project are published in the proceedings of the conference.

The European Commission delegated the design of the EAN_NORM to a consortium consisting of the companies IAF ‑ Radioökologie GmbH (Dresden) (project leader), HGN Hydrogeologie GmbH (Magdeburg) and Robotron Datenbank-Software GmbH (Dresden).

One of the first tasks of the EAN_NORM was to identify 'contact points’ willing to participate actively in the network. These are experts of the national radiation protection authorities, institutes or organisations, which performed assessments and surveys of the radiation exposure of workers in the non-nuclear industries of the Member States and established respective studies for the European Commission and experts of international and national associations as well. It is the intention of EAN_NORM that, in addition to the experts of the European Commission, the IAEA and the IRPA , at least one contact point should be established in the national radiation protection authorities or organisations of each EU Member State. A Workshop to exchange information and experiences was organized and held in Dresden (Germany) from November 20^th - 22^nd 2007. The project ended in December 2008.

But, the members of the network agreed on the advantage of having a well-working network  with members from all European states as well as from abroad. The EAN_NORM website http://www.ean-norm.net currently gets about 1000 daily visits from members and non members of the network. Recently, EAN_NORM is coordinated by IAF - Radioökologie GmbH and financially supported by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Germany). Since 2008, two further workshops have been held in Dresden: the 2^nd workshop took place from November 24^th-26^th 2009 and the 3^rd workshop from 23^rd-25^th 2010. The 4^th workshop is already planned to take place from 22^nd-24^th November 2011 in Hasselt (Belgium). The main topics will be cross border transport of NORM, NORM measurements and building materials. So, network's actions will continue.

Further details on network's activities can be found via the following web address http://www.ean-norm.net

This project, supported by the European Commission and co-ordinated by the Health Protection Agency (UK), lasted from January 2007 to May 2008. It aimed to establish a network to facilitate the promotion of the ALARA principle in industrial radiography. Now discussions are still ongoing to establish a cooperation agreement between EAN and EFNDT (European Federation for Non-Destructive Testing).

Apart from the contract report of the project, the group produced two documents regarding radiation protection good practices and training for NDT:

• Guidance for industrial mobile radiography (this document has a draft status as it has not been endorsed by the European Commission yet),
• Radiation protection in NDT - Proposals for Training Standards.

Download the "Contract Report"

Download the document "Guidance for industrial mobile radiography" (Draft document)

Download the document "Radiation Protection in NDT - Proposals for Training Standards".