KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF RK&M PRESERVATION APPROACHES AND MECHANISMS

educating younger generations about radioactivity and nuclear waste matters (NEA, 2015: p. 27; see also Section 5.6). Foreseeing recurring reviews with regard to understandability over time are also recommended, which entails that RK&M preservation strategies will need to be flexible and adaptable over time.

Although information adaptation can also be seen as a threat (information becoming deviant or defective), the advantage of non-mediated over mediated transmission is not decisive in this regard, in light of context loss and misinterpretations. There are also examples where mediated transmission has exactly ensured the preservation of the original information. A particular case in this regard is Ise Jingu, a Shinto shrine in Japan. Every so many decades one shrine is deconstructed as another one is constructed, thus keeping both an identical yet maintained shrine over time and the skills and rituals to build and use it alive.47

On the other hand, mediated transmission relying on a “rolling future” (C. Pescatore and C. Mays in NEA, 2012: p. 97) involves the vulnerable requirement of a chain of responsibilities. The breaking of such a chain cannot be excluded. Therefore it is recommended to also study and develop non-mediated mechanisms that would be less vulnerable to changes in social conditions and may be less reliant on institutional presence. The timescale under consideration needs to be taken into account and the arrival of the “long term” (see Section 4.2) should not be ruled out.

In conclusion, the recommendation is to adopt a “dual-track strategy”. A strategy that combines mediated and non-mediated RK&M preservation mechanisms would take advantage of the opportunities provided by a continuing intergenerational chain and concurrently address the challenges of reaching out to the further generations in case the intergenerational chain ceases to be functional at one point. As such, it addresses both continuity and discontinuity in the functioning of society in the future. The two tracks may address different target audiences, different timescales and different levels of detail. As for tangible and intangible carriers, hybrids of mediated and non-mediated methods are also recommended. For example, time capsules may be planned to be opened (and resealed) on a regular basis, incentives for the upkeep of markers can be developed and the responsibility for preserving records in their original format can be transferred from one generation to the next.

It also needs to be mentioned that while some transmission modes need to and can be developed and implemented in a dedicated, intentional way (e.g. regulation dedicated to RK&M preservation or a specific time capsule), others may come into being in a more unintentional way (e.g. surface traces left in the landscape due to the disposal activities or storytelling).

4.6. Multiple actors

In the past, research and policy making in the nuclear field was typically grounded on a split between “technical content” and “social context”, with a strong division of labour between natural and social scientists and a division of competences between experts and the public (Turcanu et al., 2016). In more recent years, however, the need for multidisciplinary research and broader societal involvement is increasingly recommended at national as well as supranational levels. 48 The RK&M initiative’s recommendations are no exception in this regard. On the contrary, since the topic of RK&M preservation so unmistakably requires and involves a variety of insights and players at the production, preservation, as well as the access level (see Section 3.1), it may even offer a platform for innovative forms of engagement and mutual learning.

47.See www.isejingu.or.jp/en/ritual/index.html.

48.See www.oecd-nea.org/civil or broadened beyond the nuclear context toward science and technology in general: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/science-and-society.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF RK&M PRESERVATION APPROACHES AND MECHANISMS

Multiple disciplines

RK&M preservation poses and addresses challenges of a more technical as well as a societal nature, both with regard to its content and preservation. Therefore, it is a task that requires multiple disciplines to work together. Different specialists can investigate, develop and implement different aspects of the same topic (e.g. material, legal, societal and managerial), by means of various methods (e.g. quantitative/qualitative, top-down/bottom-up) with different strengths and weaknesses. In fact, RK&M preservation requires an “interdisciplinary approach”, where results are not only added up after various disciplines did “their part of the job”, but where multiple disciplines interact and collaborate to combine their work as one joined-up activity. For instance, engineers interested in the long-term material and technological durability of information carriers and semioticians interested in the long-term societal and cultural durability of messages will need to interact and understand each other’s goals and concerns. Messages need appropriate media and media needs appropriate messages. Engineers and semioticians thus mutually shape each other’s tasks. Overall, “system development has to be understood, not just the development of single elements” (M. Buser in NEA, 2012: p. 31). Lay knowledge from local community49 members is an important field of expertise that should not be neglected in RK&M preservation (see also page 78, Footnote 72 on “citizen science”).

The RK&M initiative itself benefited from a multidisciplinary composition with members’ backgrounds and competences including physics, chemistry, geology, engineering, data management, history, philosophy, social studies of science and technology, conservation, archival science, museum studies, public management, environmental science, regulation and licensing, safety science, and programme management. Additional external expertise was sought among others in the fields of knowledge management, (landscape) archaeology, cultural heritage studies, material sciences, archiving and art. By reaching out to specialists that are not typically represented in waste management organisations, the initiative made a start with involving and engaging new groups of people in the field of nuclear waste disposal and RK&M preservation and started to build bridges between disciplines that otherwise rarely collaborate. This inter-disciplinarity helped to address and develop RK&M preservation as a task in which technical, scientific, societal and cultural information is interwoven, and where a variety of both more technical and more social methods should be assessed and deployed (NEA, 2011b).

Multiple interests, concerns and roles

RK&M preservation across generations is an effort that needs to combine the workings and insights from institutional, professional and academic spheres and from everyday life. As such, it does not only require an “interdisciplinary”, but also a “transdisciplinary” approach, which refers to an appreciation of insights and knowledge beyond disciplines and beyond academically or professionally defined expertise. Such an approach is more commonly known as a “participatory” or “stakeholder involvement” approach. It entered the nuclear field in the context of the siting of radioactive waste repositories (see the European projects COWAM50 and CARL 51 ), but is currently spreading to the broader fields of nuclear safety and radiation protection too (e.g. the new NEA division of Radiological Protection and Human Aspects of

49.The definition of “local community” adopted by the FSC is “a societal group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, usually share a government and often have a common cultural and historical heritage” (NEA, 2013b). “An Annotated Glossary of Key Terms” available online from: www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/docs/2013/6988-fsc-glossary.pdf). This specific locality in this case refers to the repository site, which is why the term “host community” is sometimes also used.

50.Community Waste Management www.cowam.com.

51.Citizen stakeholders, agencies responsible for radioactive waste management, social science research organisations, and licensing and regulatory authorities http://uahost.uantwerpen.be/carlresearch/ index.php?pg=6.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF RK&M PRESERVATION APPROACHES AND MECHANISMS

Nuclear Safety, RP-HANS 52 or the EC-funded project ENGAGE 53 and the annual RICOMET conferences54). Its relevance is also recognised by the ICRP, which states that the path for a sound optimisation process for geological disposal systems should be understood and organised as “a stepwise process where all involved stakeholders can judge the result of the optimisation process and indicate ways to improve various elements of the system” (ICRP, 2013: p. 46).

A stakeholder is defined as any actor (institution, group or individual) with an interest, concern or role to play in the radioactive waste management related RK&M preservation process (see Annex 1: RK&M glossary). Implying all RK&M preservation life cycle sub-processes (production, preservation and access, see Section 3.1), this involves a very large variety of actors with different roles to play over time, both public and private, at the local, regional, national and international level, including:55

•implementing agencies;

•regulating agencies;

•waste producers;

•governments;

•researchers and specialists in various disciplines;

•policy makers;

•international agencies;

•local communities;

•interest groups (e.g. non-governmental organisations and lobby groups);

•memory institutions;

•teachers and trainers at various levels and in various disciplines.

Being involved in and contributing to RK&M preservation is something other than being responsible. A survey among RWMC members carried out as part of the RK&M initiative in 2011 indicated implementing agencies, regulators and governments as the actors that carry the main, formal responsibilities for RK&M preservation, at least up until repository closure. Depending on the national situation, national archives are also formally involved (see also Section 5.3 on memory institutions and the corresponding mechanism in Annex 2.2). For the post-operational phase, the ICRP states the following: “In the post-operational period, after the end of active regulatory oversight, maintaining indirect oversight and memory of the facility should become a societal responsibility, possibly discharged through national or local government” (ICRP, 2013: p. 35). If oversight is to become a “societal responsibility”, it is participatory in nature and requires ongoing dialogue to periodically renew the basis of understanding among stakeholders (Pescatore et al., 2013). Local communities were mentioned multiple times throughout the RK&M initiative as potential long-term actors in the preservation of RK&M, due to their proximity to the repository and because they are thought to be a group well positioned to express possible or imagined concerns from individuals from society in a distant future (M. Jensen in NEA, 2013a: p. 110). On the other hand, it was also pointed out that there may not be a local community at all disposal sites, today or in the future (see A. van Luik in NEA, 2012: p. 32). This supports the recommendation to involve multiple stakeholders in RK&M preservation in a context-sensitive manner. It is particularly recommended to look for synergies with societal institutions and bodies,

52.www.oecd-nea.org/hans.

53.Enhancing Stakeholder participation in the Governance of radiological risks for improved radiation protection and informed decision making, www.engage-h2020.eu.

54.International conference on risk perception, communication and ethics of exposures to ionising radiation, http://ricomet2018.sckcen.be.

55.To get more insight in the variety of actors (potentially) involved in RK&M preservation, please check the section on “actors” in the various mechanism description sheets in Annex 2.2.