CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK

This also means that RK&M preservation is not only about products (e.g. a record, an archive, a marker), but as much about (ongoing) processes (recording, knowing, memorising, preserving, learning, involving, sharing, etc.). Overall, RK&M preservation requires forward looking, life cycle thinking as set out in Section 6.3, but also a stepwise methodology, characterised by flexibility and adaptability over time (see Section 6.4). The success of RK&M preservation cannot be judged today by whether they will last for one thousand or ten thousand years. It can only be evaluated in an ongoing manner, as it depends on whether or not it establishes the relevance and responsibility in the minds and attitudes of waste producers, regulators, implementing agencies, other stakeholders and the general public today, and whether that need and responsibility is understood and passed on to the next generation.

7.2. Outlook

Upholding and elaborating an open and holistic attitude

The RK&M initiative has broken new ground in long-term RWM, going beyond the technical aspects of nuclear technology development, encouraging a holistic approach towards RWM and highlighting it as a societal and intergenerational endeavour. The aim of the initiative was not to create ready-made products or recipes for RK&M preservation, but to encourage reflection, to inspire, to involve and to create societal awareness. This had the additional benefit of starting to create and transfer RK&M today, both tangible (reports and papers, a website, etc.) and intangible (a network, spreading an interest, etc.).

By forming a multidisciplinary group and by reaching out to specialists that are not typically represented in RWM 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 with building 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. Apart from formulating firm recommendations to develop and implement a systemic RK&M preservation strategy, the topic of RK&M preservation also served as a vehicle to discuss varying opinions and values in RWM more broadly, and to do so in a constructive and inspiring way. This included reflections on fundamental topics such as knowledge building, dealing with uncertainties, science communication, the interaction between society and technology, and intergenerational ethics.

Creating awareness, supporting engagement and starting RK&M preservation today

Against this background the RK&M initiative envisions the future of the work to be performed in this field, within the NEA and beyond, as consisting of two prominent, overlapping action items. Firstly, to uphold and elaborate the open and reflexive attitude within the field of RWM related RK&M preservation, which entails further learning and elaborating interaction with multiple disciplines and civil society actors. Secondly, to start assembling the components of a real RK&M approach, for example – by testing the recommendations formulated throughout this report in practice. In sum, the RK&M initiative’s outlook consists of:

•further learning related to currently underdeveloped items (e.g. related to costs and funding and to extended knowledge preservation strategies);

•consolidating and embedding lessons learnt (e.g. related to the development of a SER);

•reaching out to different communities (e.g. organising a participatory process for the preparation and management of a KIF).

Broadly disseminating the results of the RK&M initiative can be seen as a first, specific action item. Taking into account the breadth of the audience described in Section 1.1, distributing this report and other deliverables to as many potentially interested stakeholders as possible, inside and outside the nuclear domain, is only a starting point. With a view to starting systemic RK&M preservation as a dedicated management task sooner rather than later, several