Newsletters

Download the 4^th issue in PDF format

The 4^th issue of the Newsletter provides a report back on the first Workshop organised by the European ALARA Network. The topic of the workshop was ‘ALARA and Decommissioning’. This issue provides a mechanism to widely disseminate the lessons learnt from the Workshop and particularly to develop, as an outcome from the Workshop, a set of recommendations to the European Commission to facilitate, within Member States, the implementation of ALARA in decommissioning strategies and operations.

Download the 3^rd issue in PDF format

The 3^rd issue of the Newsletter tries to highlight that ALARA can be successfully pursued in very different types of installations, such as laboratories, reprocessing plants in the nuclear industry, as well as in research centres; and can cover both repetitive operations and one-off projects. This issue also emphasises the potential for significant improvements of radiological protection in the non nuclear sector.

Download the 2^nd issue in PDF format

The 2^nd issue (of the ALARA Newsletter presents two tools developed with the support of the Commission of the European Union. These are, OPTI-RP (software that provides decision makers with a simple tool facilitating the selection of radiation protection options using monetary values of the collective dose unit through Cost-Benefit analyses) and IRID, (a new database in the UK that covers radiological incidents in the non nuclear sector in order to learn lessons from the past and improve ALARA implementation in these fields). This second issue also points out that feedback experience from many countries shows that practical implementation of ALARA relies essentially on personnel motivation and involvement: in essence ALARA is "a way of thinking", similar to the very well known "safety culture" or "total quality" approach in the industrial field.

Download the 16^th issue in PDF format

The 16^th issue of the Newsletter presents in its first article the summary and recommendations from the 8^th EAN Workshop on "Occupational Radiological Protection Control and Self Assessment" (Uppsala, September 2004). Another paper presents a summary of the feedback from the research reactors sub-network after 3 years of experience. The European Committee of Radiographers and Radiological Technologists presents here the main results of concern for radiological protection of an international survey they performed dealing with training of radiographers.An Analysis of a Radiological Incident, which occurred in a textile treatment plant in France, becomes the incident case study n°16.

Finally the first announcement for the 9^th EAN Workshop on "Occupational Exposure to natural Radiation"- to be held in Augsburg- Germany, October 2005 " is available with the Application Form.

Download the 17^th issue in PDF format

First of all, the 17^th issue of the Newsletter presents the new legal entity of the European ALARA Network. The second paper deals with the implementation of the EC Council Directive 90/641 EURATOM on radiation protection of outside workers following by the announcement of the corresponding EC/DGTREN seminar. Then, the new ICRP draft document on optimisation of protection is presented. The fourth paper summarizes a thesis on optimization of patient doses linked to image quality in vascular radiology. An analysis of a radiological incident concerning a level gauge system becomes the incident case study n° 17. Finally the last announcement and preliminary program of the 9th EAN Workshop in Augsburg are available with the registration form.

Download the 18^th issue in PDF format

The 18^th issue of the Newsletter presents in its first article the summary and recommendations from the 9^th EAN Workshop on “Occupational Exposure to Natural Radiation” (Augsburg, October 2005). The second article presents the conclusions and recommendations from the Seminar on the implementation of Directive 90/641 EURATOM on the radiation protection of outside workers (Luxembourg, November 2005). Then two articles analyse a radiological incident: the analysis of an incident involving Radioactive Lightning Conductors in Croatia becomes the case study n° 18 and the case study n° 19 deals with radionuclide gauges in rough industrial environments.

Finally, the first announcement for the 10th EAN Workshop on “Experience and new developments in implementing ALARA in occupational, public and patient exposures” (Prague, Czech Republic – 12-15 September 2006) is available.

Download the 1^st issue in PDF format

The 1^st issue of the ALARA Newsletter covers the establishment of the European ALARA Network, as well as its main goals and objectives. It also provides an opportunity to remind readers of some of the basics concerning the ALARA management of the radiation risks, to describe the regulatory perspective concerning the implementation of ALARA in Swedish nuclear power plants, and to point out that the non nuclear sector provides some ALARA challenges for the future in Germany and the UK.