INSOLE

Project summary

As the regulatory strategy moves towards internal oversight, it becomes increasingly important for the licensees to recognize how the different ways to organize and implement their internal nuclear oversight function affect their safety performance, and how safety culture affects and is affected by the oversight function. The differing approaches to internal nuclear safety oversight applied in Finland and Sweden provide opportunities for Nordic cooperation, learning and transfer of lessons learned. There are potential lessons to be learned also from international and non-nuclear cases for both Finland and Sweden.

This activity contributes to the scarce scientific body of knowledge on internal oversight by collecting the experienced best practices of organizations operating in various sociotechnical contexts and examining the reasons for choosing certain configurations of internal oversight. The study also contributes to existing safety culture approaches by looking at the influence of oversight activities on safety culture, and how the current safety culture of the NPP in turn affects the possibilities to carry out oversight. In addition, the activity contributes to the development of internal nuclear safety oversight function at Nordic NPPs by applying a participatory approach.

The general aims of this activity are:

• To study how internal oversight function has been implemented in the global nuclear industry and in non-nuclear safety-critical organizations
• To examine the different ways to organize and implement internal nuclear safety oversight function in nuclear power companies from a sociotechnical perspective
• To develop normative framework for internal nuclear safety oversight function in Nordic NPP context
• To facilitate participative development of internal nuclear safety oversight in Nordic NPPs

Lead organisation

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd

Contact person

Kaupo Viitanen

kaupo.viitanen@vtt.fi 

+358 40 845 7618