NEAThe FSC National Workshops

An opportunity and method for mutual learningand for implementing dialogue

The Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC) is a working group of the Radioactive Waste Management
Committee at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). The FSC is, above all, a place of learning. Efforts arefocused on developing a dialogue among stakeholders and on seeking to build durable, shared confidence insolutions for managing radioactive waste. The stakeholders include any person, group or institution that has aninterest or plays a role at any stage of the radioactive waste management decision-making process.
The opportunity to hold an FSC workshop and community visit is an example of the services provided by theForum to member countries. These events provide a platform for direct exchange among stakeholders in anenvironment of respect and mutual learning. For the host country participants, FSC workshops are an opportunity
to present and analyse their own experience in a neutral setting, to benefit from international feedback andto leave a written record of their viewpoints. International delegates gain a better understanding of the history
and practice of radioactive waste management in the host country. All participants improve their knowledge ofthe factors influencing public confidence in the domain of radioactive waste management. The workshop is an
opportunity to reinforce or create ties among stakeholders.

The FSC
Eighteen NEA member countries with radioactive waste
management programmes participate actively in the
FSC: Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland,France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Republic ofKorea, Norway, Poland, the Russian Federation, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and theUnited States. They are nominated to the FSC by theirrespective governments. The European Commission is
also a member.
Through the FSC, members train to become better
actors in open governance. Their commitment helps topromote a cultural change in their organisations andhome countries.

FSC national workshops
A well-established practice

Organisation

The FSC has held workshops in nine countries, involving
local communities, regional actors and national stake­holders concerned with the management of radioactive
waste over the long term. Each workshop typically lasts
two and a half days, with half a day devoted to a com­munity visit or open event (public meeting or debate).
This part of the workshop allows international visitors
to gain insight into local circumstances and concerns,
and also enables a larger number of local stakeholders
to meet and exchange with international visitors. Past
workshops have allowed participants to meet both local
leaders and interested citizens: elected officials, teach­ers, heads of local businesses and local associations,and residents who are members of working groups orpartnerships for radioactive waste management.

Workshop planning relies on a diversified stakeholder
programme committee which is assembled throughthe main national host of the workshop. The latter istypically a principal player (government, implementer)in the national process and a member of the FSC.
The programme committee selects a workshop
theme closely related to a significant experience ordevelopment at the country or local level. The workshop
format includes short presentations, followed bydiscussions in small groups and then a presentationof the reflections and conclusions in plenary. The
programme committee helps to obtain the participationof a full range of national stakeholders, who present
and debate the selected theme(s) together with theinternational participants. International FSC delegatesplay the role of moderators and rapporteurs. At theend of the workshop, an invited international expert
from outside the FSC (usually an academic researcher)presents feedback on lessons to be learnt and on theworkshop experience.

Hosting an FSC workshop indicates a determina­tion to transparently display and discuss the national
radioactive waste management process. In some cases,
workshops have enabled the gathering of all the differ­ent actors under the same roof for the first time.

© OECD

Participation

Documentation and outreach

Typically, about 30-40 international delegates, includ­ing FSC members and their own invited stakeholders,
participate in each workshop. An equal number of hostcountry stakeholders participate, including membersof the national waste management organisation, rep­resentatives of local communities and members of the
public concerned, members of safety authorities, publicdecision-makers and R&D specialists, as well as mem­bers of civil society organisations. Other formats canbe explored.

The FSC produces a synthesis of the presentations anddiscussions and it publishes the workshop papers. The
workshop documentation is made available on thepublic FSC webpages. It provides a historical archive of
the opinions and perspectives of all stakeholders. All
participants continue to stay up to date on international
developments and lessons to be learnt by receiving
periodic information from the FSC.

Experience so far
FSC workshops and visits have proven to be constructive
in fostering national dialogue and helping frame theissues that stakeholders wish to see considered. The
neutral platform of the FSC makes it possible to:• help initiate a new phase in an existing process of• gather all stakeholders from the host country under• record the views of all types of stakeholders.

a single roof;reflection and exchange;• give local stakeholders the possibility to meetinternational delegates and to share experience;• help new actors, or those who are not members of anestablished organisation, to enter the process;

Examples of workshop themes
the interaction between stakeholders at the local
and national levels (Spain), added value, regional
development and the support received by local
communities (Hungary, Sweden, France), and organising
the reversibility of decisions and retrievability of waste(France).

SÚRAOIn the past nine workshops, a broad range of themes
were discussed, including stepwise decision-making(Finland), local and national considerations in therestoration of contaminated sites (Canada), themethodology of local partnerships (Belgium), site
selection procedures (Germany, Czech Republic),

Through its initiatives, the NEA Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC) contributes to a new
approach to decision-making on the management of radioactive waste. FSC workshops and visits
have proven to be constructive in fostering national dialogue and helping frame the issues thatstakeholders wish to see considered. The FSC takes up all proposed themes in a spirit of openness
and service to member countries. The FSC offers its workshops as an opportunity and method
for mutual learning and for implementing dialogue.

Download reports from previous workshops and visits at www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/fsc

December 2014

The 2012 FSC Workshop in the Czech Republic.