First steering committee meeting for the joint lab NUS-SNRSI/IRSN

The first steering committee meeting was held on October 22, 2024 in Singapore, in the presence of IRSN Director General Jean-Christophe Niel. The committee comprises Diane Tiong, Christelle Chua and Garvin Mak for NUS-SNRSI, and Jean-Michel Bonnet, Olivier Marchand, Marc Gleizes and Marilyne Tombette for IRSN. It will be chaired by Marc Gleizes for the first two years.

A Joint Laboratory agreement between the Singapore Nuclear Research and Safety Initiative of the National University of Singapore (NUS-SNRSI) and IRSN was signed on May 2. Under the terms of the agreement, the laboratory will be governed by a steering committee.

The joint laboratory director, Prof. Keng Yeow Chung, director of NUS-SNRSI, and its deputy director Jacqueline Garnier-Laplace, Scientific Coordinator of the European Radiation Protection Strategy of IRSN, presented an overview of activities for 2024, the work program for 2025 and the outlook for 2026 concerning the laboratory's three research themes of radiochemistry, radiobiology and safety of SMRs.

Julie-Anne Zambaux from IRSN also took the opportunity to share feedback from her 6-month secondment to NUS-SNRSI on the development of ASTEC for SMRs. Moreover, the teams regularly exchange on scientific topics of common interest, as demonstrated by IRSN's specialists Azza Habibi and Gaëtan Gruel’s remote presentations.

IRSN members of the steering committee also enjoyed a visit of the NUS-SNRSI facilities at their newly constructed building. 

This meeting marks a new stage in the long-term collaboration that IRSN and NUS-SNRSI have experienced and maintained for the past 10 years.