How is ORPAS performed?
The ORPAS is performed by an international team comprising senior ORP experts with broad knowledge of the regulation and application of ORP and extensive related experience, often in specialized areas. The team goes to the country with the following objectives:
To obtain information from documentation, through meetings and interviews with designated organizations, and from visits to representative facilities. This may include confirmation of information provided prior to the mission, verification of selected responses to the host country's self-assessment questionnaires, or follow up of specific topics identified in the information provided prior to the mission;
To assemble the information into a preliminary report and prepare the major findings and recommendations;
To provide the host country with, and discuss, the major findings and recommendations arising out of the appraisal.
Who is conducting the ORPAS mission?
The ORPAS Appraisal Team is led by a senior expert from a Member State designated as the ORPAS Team Leader and in general, the team comprises of designated IAEA Coordinator and experienced international experts.
Typically, an appraisal team will consist of:
A Team Leader, who will be recruited from a Member States;
An ORPAS Deputy Team Leader, recruited from a Member State;
An IAEA Coordinator (an IAEA staff member);
ORPAS Reviewers, mainly recruited from Member States but can additionally include, where necessary, experts drawn from IAEA staff or external consultants to the IAEA;
An IAEA administrative assistant (based at the IAEA Headquarters);
In addition to having technical skills, it is important that the team can adopt a consistent approach within the appraisal and with other appraisals.
The team leader must be a recognized expert in occupational radiation protection and must have experience conducting similar appraisals and some of the team members should have experience conducting similar appraisals. It is also beneficial if team members have experience in the appraisal of occupational radiation protection arrangements of organizations other than their own. Some of the team members are usually able to communicate in the language of the host country.
Who are the potential participants of the mission?
- Regulatory body (in some cases this may be more than one organization).
- Government ministries with an involvement in and/or responsibility for occupational radiation protection. Typically, these may include the following, but the precise titles will vary from country to country:
Ministry of Employment or Ministry of Labour
Ministry of Industry
Ministry of Energy or Nuclear Energy
Ministry of Civil Aviation
Ministry of Transport
Ministry of Mines and Mineral Resources
Ministry of Science and Technology
- Technical Service Providers (note that the term 'TSP' covers those providing radiation protection services to several organizations, and those supplying a single organization or facility):
Internal dosimetry services including whole body counter measurements, thyroid counter measurements for direct monitoring, bioassay laboratories providing indirect monitoring
Radon dosimetry service
Central record-keeping facility
- Operators of facilities and activities using ionizing radiation (note that in most circumstances only a very limited selection of operators would be included in a review mission, and only representative facilities from within each selected activity):
Irradiation facilities (industrial and research)
Industrial (nuclear) gauging applications - thickness (mass) measurement, level detection, moisture determination, well-loging
Analytical techniques (industrial and research) such as diffraction, fluoroscopy, neutron activation techniques
Research activities (industrial and academic laboratories) using, for example, sealed sources and generators and unsealed radioactive materials
Mining, mineral extraction and processing facilities (industrial activities involving naturally occurring radioactive material)
Research reactors and nuclear research facilities
Nuclear power reactors
Fuel cycle facilities including enrichment, fuel fabrication and reprocessing facilities
Radioisotope production facilities and source manufacturing
Uranium mines and processing facilities
Any workplaces with significant concentrations of natural radionuclides
What are the review methods?
The ORPAS team uses three methods to acquire sufficient information to allow an objective assessment and evaluation for the arrangements of ORP in the host country:
Review of the completed ORPAS Questionnaires;
Interviews with personnel and other officials during site visits;
Direct observation at facilities and activities during site visits.
What is the outcome of the appraisal?
The expected outcomes of an ORPAS mission are:
To identify areas for improvements of the occupational radiation protection arrangements to meet the IAEA Safety Standards;
To make recommendations and suggestions related to the identified areas for improvement;
To provide assistance, if necessary, for the development of an action plan to achieve improvements.
The outcome of an ORPAS mission is a report that, following the preliminary steps of collating, drafting, reviewing and final agreement is submitted through official channels to the State concerned.
Confidentiality arrangements are in place to safeguard the individual information of the Operators and TSPs. The IAEA will only use the report to update the reviewed country's radiation and waste safety infrastructure profile and the nuclear safety profile, as appropriate.
