Radioactive waste is produced in all phases of the nuclear fuel cycle and from the use of radioactive materials in industrial, medical, defence and research applications. After creation and use, many countries have a policy of interim storage, followed by permanent disposal underground in engineered repositories located in a suitable geological formation. Significant quantities of data and information are generated throughout this lifecycle with many countries now exploring the concept of a digital safety case.

The operational period of nuclear generation facilities often covers several decades, while disposal facilities are designed to operate for even longer. This raises significant challenges, as these timeframes span multiple generations of workers and are likely to see many changes in policy and technology. It is crucial to maintain well-structured records of the waste, its packaging and processing, together with appropriate knowledge and skills within society to ensure informed decisions can be made to manage the waste hazard effectively until its disposal. Moreover, even after disposal, there is now a consensus on the importance of adopting strategies to preserve awareness of waste and disposal facility for long periods of time. While improvements to technology have made it easier to generate and query large volumes of data, if appropriately structured, they have also introduced challenges related to digital obsolescence.

The NEA Working Party on Information, Data and Knowledge Management (WP-IDKM) aims to co-ordinate these activities in a more holistic way, considering cross-disciplinary approaches and cognoscenti of all timescales of the information cycle. There have been significant development in IDKM in recent years, beyond radioactive waste management to encompass the wider structure of information management.

Bringing together technical and non-technical experts, policy and decision makers, and interested community groups, the 2025 NEA Symposium on IDKM aims to:

• Provide a forum for WP-IDKM and its Expert Groups (EGs): the Expert Group on a Data and Information Management Strategy for the Safety Case (EGSSC), the Expert Group on Knowledge Management for Radioactive Waste Programmes and Decommissioning (EGKM), and the Expert Group on Archiving and Awareness Preservation (EGAAP) to present conclusions of their current work;
• Allow NEA Member Countries to present their internal initiatives and learn form the experience of others;
• Enhance the understanding of IDKM among stakeholder groups and RWMO's, fostering dialogue and feedback;
• Unite IDKM and information technology specialists from the nuclear and non-nuclear sectors to understand the state of the art and enable horizon scanning;
• Enable networking and knowledge exchange;
• Build an international consensus on IDKM best practices for radioactive waste management;
• Develop a holistic vision of IDKM across technical and non-technical stakeholders across all timescales; and,
• Identify future challenges on IDKM that would benefit from future international co-operation. 

The local host of the 2025 NEA IDKM Symposium is the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO).

Registration for the 2025 NEA IDKM Symposium is currently open and will close in August 2025.

Please note that the Symposium will offer a (provisional) site visit to Fukushima Daiichi NPP.

Registration for this site visit is first-come, first-serve, and offered only to a limited number of registered and paid participants. 

Registration fees:

• 350 EUR for general participants
• 175 EUR for early career professionals (under the age of 30 and less than 5 years of experience). A CV will be required as proof of early career, and applicants may register for the reduced registration fee here. 

Vincent Maugis (ANDRA, France)

Panja Feuker (BGE, Germany)

Stephan Hotzel (BASE, Germany)

Ulrich Noseck (GRS, Germany)

József Fekete (RHK, Hungary)

Takeshi Ebashi (NUMO, Japan)

Carl-Henrick Pettersson (SSM, Sweden)

Pascale Jana Künzi (BFE, Switzerland)

Alexander Carter (NWS, United Kingdom)

Russell Chris Camphouse (SNL, United States)

Alyssa Clark (LANL, United States) 

Shogo Nishikawa (NEA)

Linda Okpala (NEA)

Morgan Packer (NEA)

Rebecca Tadesse (NEA)

Abstract submissions are currently open for the Symposium, and we invite interested authors to submit the form duly completed (available on this webpage for download) to NEA-IDKM-Symposium@oecd-nea.org. 

Open call for abstracts: 2 December 2024

Close of abstract submissions: 3 March 2025

Notify authors of accepted abstracts: April 2025

Issue final programme: May 2025

Submission of papers (3-7 pages) to NEA Secretariat for accepted abstracts: 29 August 2025

Photo credit: Pierre Blaché on Pexels