ORIENT-NM Project - Objectives

The objectives of ORIENT-NM are:

• To design a plan for a European Joint Programme (EJP1) on nuclear materials, in all its aspects, that is:
  • To produce a convincing strategic research agenda (SRA) for materials for all nuclear fission reactor generations, projected until 2040, with special focus on a plan for the first 5 years. This SRA will be consistent with national programmes and industrial needs, including supply chain constraints, while paying attention to standardisation issues and verifying the availability of suitable infrastructures.
  • To elaborate an efficient EJP governance and legal structure, including attention for decision-making processes, intellectual property issues, promotion of innovation and analysis of potentially available financial (and human) resources, as well as an implementation scheme caring among others for quality assurance (QA), SRA updating, knowledge and data management; all this considering different possible scenarios, depending on the resources that are actually available.
  • To identify appropriate ways of interactions between the EJP and other bodies and initiatives that bear connections with nuclear materials (stake-holders), including international organisations, standardisation bodies, technical safety organisations (TSO) and possibly safety authorities as well, fusion and non-nuclear energy communities and other associations, while addressing the issue of a coordinated use of nuclear materials infrastructures.
• Define all of the above in close dialogue with Member States (MS) and European Commission (EC), as well as all other stake-holders, in order to meet their requirements and expectations from an EJP on nuclear materials and raise the interest of identified research owners and research managers, by demonstrating the added value of such EJP.