From 19th to 21th September, a training workshop of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “Safety Culture and Leadership for Safety” was held at Kalinin NPP, attended by IAEA experts from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, the Scientific Research Center “Prognoz”, as well as members of safety culture self-assessment group at Kalinin NPP.
The visit took place as part of the joint project of the IAEA and Rosenergoatom Concern JSC “Introduction of system for continuous safety culture improvement on the basis of regular self-assessment using IAEA methodology”.
In welcoming the workshop participants, Director of Kalinin NPP Victor Ignatov pointed out that beside the needed introduction of technical safety systems, it is equally important to cultivate an attitude to safety as the supreme value among employees, as well as to develop their sustainable motivation for continuous improvement. “We hope that this workshop will produce practical recommendations on improving safety culture and self-assessment of employees’ actions. Objective self-assessment allows to anticipate and eliminate problems, actually preventing them from happening, which is one of the essential conditions of a self-developing organization”, said Victor Ignatov.
During their three-day visit, IAEA experts made several presentations on leadership and safety culture and conducted focus groups, where they discussed the topics of the agenda.
According to Diana Engström, who was heading the team of experts, safety culture self-assessment methodology based on IAEA safety standards gives an opportunity to assess the current state of safety culture at the enterprise and identify steps for its further improvement. “For a nuclear power plant, a strong safety culture and genuine leadership in this field are of crucial importance”, noted Diana Engström.
Kalinin NPP is a subsidiary of Rosenergoatom Concern JSC. The plant is located in the north of Tver Oblast in Udomlya District. Kalinin NPP operates four power units with VVER-1000 reactors with an installed capacity of 1000 MW each.
Actual information about the radiological situation in the vicinity of Russian NPPs and other nuclear industry facilities is available at the website www.russianatom.ru.