Within the domain of radioactive waste management (RWM) and deep geological disposal, the European Commission (EC) has funded research and development (R&D) for over 40 years, fostering what is today a strong cooperation between European waste management organizations (WMO), regulatory technical support organizations (TSO), and research entities (RE). The underpinning technical knowledgebase is now sufficient to allow Europe to be on the verge of operation of its first geological disposal facilities for spent fuel and/or high level and intermediate level long lived radioactive wastes. Despite this progress, continued R&D is necessary to develop, maintain, and consolidate knowledge throughout the stepwise development, increase safety margins and disposal robustness, support optimization, and integrate scientific and technological progress over long time of disposal facilities operation to the closure.
In a step change from a previous model of individual projects to a more enduring and integrated programme of cooperation activities between European Union (EU) Member State (MS) National Programmes, the European Commission has established the European Joint Programme (EJP) of collaborative research called EURAD.
Launched in 2019, EURAD is an initial 5-year EJP on RWM, built based on activities of shared importance between WMOs, TSOs, and nationally funded REs. Guided by a shared vision, roadmap, and strategic research agenda, EURAD supports MS at various stages of geological disposal implementation and focusses on scientific and technological R&D, aligned to implementation needs, scientific excellence and safety considerations and underpinned by an ambitious knowledge management programme.
EURAD’s concept is to generate new and manage existing knowledge to support MS in implementing Directive 2011/70/EURATOM and, more specifically, to support and complement the national programmes in their development and delivery of safe, long term management solutions for different types of radioactive wastes, taking into account different programme sizes and stages of advancement.
THEODON L;
BEATTIE T;
CARBOL Paul;
GRAMBOW Bernd;
WINSLEY R;
ZUIDEMA P;
2025-05-16
IAEA
JRC142300
978-92-0-155423-9 (online),
978-92-0-155323-2 (print),
0074–1884,
https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/PUB2077_web.pdf,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC142300,
