Engines of Action: The WNU Working Groups

The essence of the WNU - and the full range of its diverse agenda - can be found in the purposes and activities of the WNU Working Groups.

Each WNU Working Group will foster multinational cooperation among educators and professional experts. Some Working Groups - especially the Working Group charged with developing WNU-certified courses and degrees - will draw from the work of others.

Several Working Groups will examine specific subject areas that are integral to a "globalising" nuclear profession. These topics are nuclear reactor and isotope technology, nuclear safeguards and security, nuclear law, public psychology and the global safety culture.

Each of these topic-oriented Working Groups will examine, within its subject area, how nuclear education can be strengthened in the context of projected nuclear needs and activities.

As the Working Groups focus on improving nuclear education and training in key subject areas, the collaborative process will provide a valuable opportunity for these teams to think creatively about improved nuclear practice.

Indeed, the functioning of each Working Group as a multinational forum of experts - interacting without the formal constraints of official governmental positions - will be an integral virtue of the WNU process.

For example, the WNU Working Group on Safeguards and Security - while working to develop strong course content - can pursue the recent call by the IAEA's Director General for a worldwide review of systemic ways to raise anti-proliferation defences around the nuclear fuel cycle. This Working Group could explore the concept of multilateral control of key fuel-processing facilities and the prospect for increased proliferation resistance in reactor systems.

Collectively, the WNU Working Groups will seek to:

• Foster practical cooperation among Participating Institutions in the exchange of students and faculty, the sharing of facilities and increased use of distance learning.

• Support the preservation and management of nuclear knowledge.

• Evaluate, develop and make recommendations concerning coursework in all major subject areas relevant to the global nuclear profession.

• Design a WNU-certified degree as an internationally accepted professional credential.

In order to bring future nuclear needs and possibilities into clearer focus, other WNU Working Groups will develop authoritative multinational analysis of key aspects of future global use of nuclear technology. Initial projects will include:

• Assessing the potential for peaceful nuclear activity worldwide and the corresponding demand - and possible shortfall - for nuclear expertise in various regions and countries.

• Analysing how the world community can, through national and international policy, achieve the maximum beneficial use of nuclear technology to promote the goal of global sustainable development.

As venues for fresh thinking and innovation, WNU Working Groups are open to participation by nuclear educators and other nuclear experts from throughout the Participating Institutions.

In several Working Groups, the prominent role of Founding Supporters will reflect their expertise and the leadership that will be needed from these multinational nuclear institutions to galvanise the WNU's global educational partnership.

The framework of WNU Working Groups was created during the Organising Session that followed the WNU Inaugural Ceremony on 4 September 2003.

Each Working Group remains open to participation by nuclear educators and other experts from throughout the global nuclear community.

Any Working Group is free, in consultation with the WNU Secretariat and other Working Groups, to adjust the details of its mandate. New Working Groups may be created at the will of the Participating Institutions.

The ten current Working Groups fall into three categories spanning the diversity of the WNU agenda. Details on each Working Group follow the outline below.

A. CORE FUNCTIONS: Knowledge, Education, Professional Credentials

These WG's will focus on the systems needed to preserve, organise and deliver nuclear knowledge to future generations.

WG 1. INTER-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION
WG 2. WNU CURRICULUM DESIGN
WG 3. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT & PRESERVATION

B. KEY NUCLEAR DISCIPLINES: Shaping Nuclear Practice and Teaching the Nuclear Profession

Each of these WG's, in focussing on a specific key topic, will develop: (a) concepts for strengthening nuclear standards, practices and institutions; and (b) strong and "globalised" courses suitable for adoption by Participating Institutions as part of a "WNU-certified" curriculum.

WG 4. GLOBAL NUCLEAR SAFETY CULTURE
WG 5. COOPERATIVE NUCLEAR RESEARCH & INNOVATION
WG 6. NUCLEAR LAW
WG 7. NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY
WG 8. SOCIETY AND NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY

C. WNU ANALYSIS: Projects on the Future of Nuclear Technology

These WG's will use multinational teams of experts to develop authoritative thinking on the future use of nuclear technology.

WG 9. GLOBAL USE OF NUCLEAR POWER
WG 10. NUCLEAR ENERGY & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

THE WNU WORKING GROUPS: MANDATES AND COMPOSITION

1. INTER-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION Working Group

This Working Group will focus on the practical efficiencies and educational synergies to be found in cooperation among Participating Institutions.

Specific areas of potential cooperation are:

2. WNU CURRICULUM DESIGN Working Group

This Working Group will function as a think tank to begin the work of specifying the value-added contribution the WNU could make in devising new courses:

• For summer schools.
  
  
• For immediate incorporation into WNU members' curricula.
  
  
• For eventual inclusion in a WNU-certified degree.

In designing a "globalised" curriculum, the WG will draw on the efforts of other Working Groups that focus on key topics including:

• Strengthening the global nuclear safety culture.
  
  
• Cooperative nuclear research & innovation in both power and non-power applications.
  
  
• Nuclear law.
  
  
• Nuclear safeguards and security.
  
  
• Society and nuclear technology.
  

This Working Group will consider how a "global marketplace" for those with nuclear skills might be fostered with WNU assistance.

3. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT & PRESERVATION Working Group

Nuclear technology is based on the accumulation of knowledge, which exists in various documentation - scientific research, engineering analysis, design documents, operational data, maintenance records, regulatory reviews - and in the acquired wisdom and experience of senior scientists, engineers, and technicians. Institutionally, this knowledge resides in governments, academia, and industry - and in different languages and formats.

Recognising that the future of nuclear technology depends on successfully managing and transferring this knowledge - and that this challenge is exacerbated today by generational change - this Working Group will focus on certain systemic knowledge management and preservation tasks.

The Working Group's purpose will be to help:

• Capture and disseminate existing educational experience and skills from senior nuclear professionals.
  
  
• Develop knowledge bases in various areas of nuclear science and technology.
  
  
• Identify recommendations on succession planning.
  
  
• Devise institutional strategies for nuclear information management (in cooperation with the IAEA, NEA and other major nuclear institutions).

4. GLOBAL NUCLEAR SAFETY CULTURE Working Group

This Working Group will seek to identify ways of heightening the efficiency and strength of the global nuclear safety culture through a combination of technology, education and training.

5. COOPERATIVE RESEARCH & INNOVATION Working Group

This Working Group will examine the directions of current research and the prospects for innovation and on that basis seek to:

• Identify new partnerships that might usefully be developed among WNU participants, Founding Supporters, and governments.
  
  
• Promote philanthropic support for promising areas of nuclear research.
  

The WG will focus on research and innovation in the full array of nuclear technologies - both power generation and agricultural, industrial, medical and environmental applications.

6. NUCLEAR LAW Working Group

This Working Group will seek to identify both institutional changes and course content that would improve practice and education in the realm of nuclear law.

A key building block of this Working Group will be the International School of Nuclear Law at Montpellier.

7. NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY Working Group

This Working Group will analyse the full range of possibilities for strengthening defenses against the illicit use of nuclear technology whether by covert production, diversion of nuclear material or terrorist act. The scope of the Working Group's interest will include:

• Building inherent proliferation resistance using:
  
  
  • Advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies.
  • New international systems on enrichment, reprocessing and waste.
    
    
• Strengthened systems to protect nuclear materials against diversion, terrorism and theft to include:
  
  
  • New safeguards technologies and procedures.
  • Improved methods and technologies for nuclear materials management and protection.

Having established a vision for future safeguards and security, the Working Group will develop training materials, specialised lectures, and short-term and full-term courses to include:

• Reference information for governments with respect to safeguards and security undertakings.
• Relevant courses and reference materials for State systems for accounting and control (SSAC) of nuclear materials.
• Focussed courses on safeguards and security topics (general and specific) for industry and the public.
• Curricula for courses to be offered in degree programmes, including a WNU-certified Master's Degree.
  

This Working Group will liaise with WG #2 on WNU curriculum design and will support Working Group #5 by identifying areas for cooperative research aimed at strengthening safeguards and nuclear security.

8. SOCIETY AND NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY Working Group

This Working Group will analyse:

Such materials, which could be WNU-branded and made available in numerous languages, would serve to:

• Meet the dearth of sound information available in schools.
  
  
• Stimulate student interest in the nuclear professions.
  
  
• Provide respected reference sources for policymakers and the media.
  

9. GLOBAL USE OF NUCLEAR POWER Working Group

This Working Group will marshal a multinational team of experts to develop a balanced assessment of future prospects for the global use of nuclear power as a primary energy source to produce electricity, hydrogen and desalinated water.

The Working Group will build on recent studies conducted under the auspices of MIT and Harvard in the U.S. and by the UK's Royal Institute of International Affairs.

The Working Group will draw upon:

• Strengths inherent in a team of energy and nuclear power experts from most of the world's key developed and developing countries.
  
  
• Corporate expertise embodied in the output of the WNA's Working Group on Industry Economics.
  
  
• Analysis and advice from other WNU Working Groups, including those on:
  
• Nuclear Energy and Sustainable Development
• Global Nuclear Safety Culture
• Nuclear Safeguards and Security
• Cooperative Nuclear Research & Innovation
• Knowledge Management and Preservation
• Nuclear Law
• Society and Nuclear Technology.

The Working Group will seek to produce an analysis, to be published by the WNU, within a 12-24 month period.

10. NUCLEAR ENERGY & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Working Group

This Working Group will proceed from: