Research activities (RTD)
CONFIDENCE aims to improve decision making for the protection
of the population affected by nuclear emergencies and to minimise
disruption of normal living conditions. This will be achieved
through the reduction of uncertainties, where practicable, and
the development of approaches to deal with uncertainty information.
It will use a multidisciplinary approach dealing with all
aspects regarding the radiological situation following an
accidental release, from the prognosis of dispersion and its
spatial-temporal evolution, to the offsite consequences, and
the decision making to select, implement and evaluate remediation
strategies, including the viewpoints of stakeholders. Some of the
innovative software solutions will be integrated into Decision
Support Systems (DSS) for operational use in the nuclear emergency
management. These revised DSS will be used to develop scenarios
that are key within CONFIDENCE’s work plan.
The scientific challenges will be addressed though six interlinked
work packages (WP), with an additional E&T WP , to achieve the
following objectives:
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Tackle uncertainties in the pre- and early release phase of
the accident, by (i) identifying and ranking the main sources
of uncertainties; (ii) characterizing and quantifying their
effect on simulation results (e.g., activity concentrations,
dose assessment, reference levels); and (iii) proposing
practical solutions to better take into account these
uncertainties in an emergency response context (WP1)
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Develop comprehensive software tools for the quick and efficient
assessment of cancer risk to affected populations to be used as
an input in the overall decision making process (WP2)
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Develop approaches and tools integrating external and internal
dosimetric monitoring data to obtain a comprehensive picture of
the radiological situation and link it with dose simulations and
risk assessment tools to support decision making (e.g. for medical
screening needs) (WP2)
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Improve the capabilities of radioecological models used to
predict activity concentrations in foodstuffs and to better
characterise, and where possible, reduce uncertainties (WP3)
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Engage national stakeholders to improve the preparedness and
response in the transition phase, and to identify and reduce the
uncertainties in the subsequent management of the long-term
exposure situation, reflecting requirements from the new
European Basic Safety Standards (WP4)
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Identify social and ethical issues related to uncertainty
management in emergency and post-accident situations and clarify
how stakeholders at the various levels deal with uncertainty
in their decision making processes (WP5)
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Support and improve communication of uncertainties (WP5
and WP6) and facilitate robust decision making taking
into account the variability of the radiological situation and
decision makers’ preferences (WP6)
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Develop training courses and educational material for professionals
and students related to the issues and activities addressed in
CONFIDENCE (WP7)
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