Revitalizing Nuclear Safety Research (1986) / Chapter Skim
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Eliminating Barriers to an Effective Program of Nuclear Safety Research
Eliminating Barriers to an Effective Program of Nuclear Safety Research
Pages 43-64
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From page 43... ...
The U.S. nuclear safety research program is widely perceived to be in trouble.
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From page 44... ...
Even though the committee was not in a position to address the question of the "right" dollar amount for the NRC research program, it strongly believes that whatever the appropriate amount may be, more real value will be attained for each dollar spent on nuclear safety research if the reforms recommended below are implemented. Needless to say, administering a multimillion dollar program of safety research is a formidable challenge.
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From page 45... ...
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From page 46... ...
side-effect of the downward trend of funding for nuclear safety research is that it may have made available qualified researchers for agency employment. Nevertheless, experienced researchers may not be willing to make commitments to the NRC.
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From page 47... ...
To design an effective program, the Office of Research must consult with users of research both inside and outside the agency, including in the former case the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and the commissioners. Coordinating with these various parties is especially important in the design of the program because it is only through this process that the agency's research philosophy, long-range goals, and research priorities can be integrated into a cohesive program.
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From page 48... ...
An appropriate philosophy of safety research would make clear that the agency has a commitment both to the continuing review of knowledge gained from operating reactors and from ongoing research and to the revision of existing safety regulations in light of that experience. An example of one of the benefits of having a research philosophy is that such a philosophy would make clear what organizing principle or principles are being used to construct the program of research, for example, what determines the balance between research on accident prevention and research on accident mitigation.
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From page 49... ...
It should clarify the connection between the research philosophy and the various elements of the annual budget, but it has no value if it does nothing more than recount what that budget consists of. In fact, the process is likely to be more important than whatever plan may emerge from it.
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From page 50... ...
Effective management of the overall program and effective planning of the annual budget require that the Office of Research review the logic of specific program elements. This should be accomplished through a process that involves interacting with four different groups: the user community within the agency (including the other program offices, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, and the commissioners)
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From page 51... ...
Although the existing relationship between the Office of Research and NRR may be formally correct, with formalized arrangements for interoffice concurrence, the transmission of user request memoranda, and the distribution of research reports, in reality there is insufficient substantive interaction at the level and with the continuity and intensity that is needed for a used and useful research program. In fact, there seems to be little interest in or understanding of the existing research program outside of the Office of Research.
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From page 52... ...
The executive director of operations should ensure that much more face-to-face discussion occurs among the NRC program offices at the branch level concerning the philosophy and content of the research program. Utilization of the products of the research program would be facilitated if NRC initiated a practice of drafting interoffice documents on regulatory issues, with the Office of Research actively participating.
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From page 53... ...
The Congress should relieve the ACRS of any formal requirement to review the safety research program. Nonetheless, the ACRS contains a substantial amount of expertise on nuclear safety and the Office of Research should continue to coordinate informally with the ACRS or a designated ACRS subcommittee in designing the research program.
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From page 54... ...
Establishing a research philosophy for planning research, identifying and correcting weaknesses in research management, holding the research director accountable -- these are basic functions of the head of any agency that conducts research. Yet the commissioners do not now provide this leadership.
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From page 55... ...
In lieu of that, and given the fact that the research program constitutes almost a third of the NRC budget, the committee recommends that the following steps be taken: 9. The NRC chairman should assign a member of his or her staff to devote full time to monitoring research, including visiting researchers, talking with the Office of Research personnel, and sitting in on all meetings devoted to research in order to keep the chairman informed.
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From page 56... ...
The NRC should empanel an independent advisory group, reporting to the director of research, with expertise in the range of disciplines relevant to nuclear safety research. The group should be charged with independently reviewing for the director of research, from the perspective of the general principles cited in this report, the overall structure and thrust of the research program.
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From page 57... ...
The most effective mechanism is for the agency to establish independent topical peer review groups and to encourage the publication of sponsored research in peer-reviewed technical journals. Peer review would be highly beneficial even if there were no advisory group, because it would foster confidence in the products of NRC research and help maintain high standards of competence in the program.
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From page 58... ...
NRC contracting has been strongly influenced by circumstances surrounding the birth of the agency; the NRC was, of course, created out of parts of the Atomic Energy Commission, which had charge over the national laboratories that conducted the bulk of the AEC's safety research. Congress precluded the newly established NRC from building its own research facilities and directed the agency to make use of ERDA's (now DOE's)
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From page 59... ...
They have made substantial contributions to nuclear reactor safety, and can continue to provide not only unique facilities for conducting safety research but a staff that includes some of the most highly competent research scientists and engineers in the world. However, the NRC program's current and previous heavy reliance on these laboratories for more than 80 percent of the work does not appear to be the result of conscious decisions that all of the best people are there or that all of the most important proposals come from the laboratories.
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From page 60... ...
Consolidation might have the benefit of increasing laboratory management attention on NRC programs and might provide a stronger overall corps of researchers both inside and outside the laboratories. Congress might even consider reconstituting one or more of these laboratories as a completely joint government-industry center for nuclear safety research, perhaps modeled to some extent after the Health Effects Research Institute, which is run jointly by industry and the Environmental Protection Agency.
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From page 61... ...
The universities provide a source of independent thinking as well as "centers-of-excellence" in basic and exploratory research. Dedicated long-term funding of university researchers must be available to ensure retention of a corps of experienced academic researchers in basic science and engineering and to provide a training ground for the future nuclear safety research professionals that will be needed to staff industrial laboratories, contract research organizations, and government agencies.
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From page 62... ...
Though it is already possible for university researchers to conduct research at the national laboratories, the NRC and the DOE have not encouraged researchers in the field of nuclear safety to do so. This is why university faculty seldom use the national laboratories for nuclear safety research, which is in marked contrast to the high-energy physics community where faculty routinely perform experiments using federal facilities designed for high-energy physics research.
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From page 63... ...
The NRC's failure to use the research program properly to help close outstanding safety issues prevents the Congress and the OMB from playing a constructive role in overseeing the planning and implementation of the research program. On the other side, OMB refuses to recognize the ramifications for nuclear safety research of continually cutting the NRC budget.
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From page 64... ...
64 Nuclear safety research is too important to be continually whipsawed and debilitated by bad management and the vicissitudes of the political process. It requires competent, responsible leadership from OMB and the Congress, as well as from NRC.
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