Joint projects
In order to strengthen European scientific excellence and to reduce the fragmentation of the European actinide sciences community, ACTINET brings together experimentalists and modellers, fostering ACTINET Joint Research Projects. Periodical Calls for joint projects are published within the Network.
Joint Research Projects are proposed by at least two different ACTINET member organisations from at least two different European countries. They are evaluated by the Scientific Advisory Committee prior to receiving support. The evaluation criteria take into account: scientific excellence, potential impact on the integration of the European actinide science community and priority applications in the field of nuclear energy.
The research projects potentially address all the major fields of basic actinide sciences, keeping in mind the potential applications for the production of nuclear fission energy:
- The safety assessment of waste management strategies is a major issue, including geological disposal of radioactive waste, and partitioning and transmutation of long-lived radionuclides on an industrial scale, which has to be established through demonstrations on weighable quantities of radionuclides. This requires an adequate understanding of the behaviour of materials containing actinides (fuels, waste matrices, transmutation targets), and of the chemistry of actinides in geochemical environments and in partitioning processes.
- Furthermore, in-depth technical assessments are, and will remain required to support operation of existing nuclear plants and to improve their performance in terms of safety, economy and flexibility. This covers issues, such as increased fuel burn-up, longer fuel cycles, extension of plant life, power up-rating, and it therefore requires a better understanding of fuel behaviour under reactor conditions and after irradiation.
- Finally, the potential of innovative concepts for better use of fissile resources must be investigated and evaluated in terms of safety, economy, reliability, environmental impact, resistance against proliferation, and diversity of application. The assessment of these new concepts also requires a considerable amount of experimental and modelling work on systems involving actinides.
The Joint Research Projects are distributed in three main scientific scopes in actinide sciences:
- Scope 1: separation chemistry and basic actinide science
- Scope 2: geochemistry of actinides
- Scope 3: actinide materials under/after irradiation.
ACTINET also fosters projects with regard to education & training:
