Meeting that was held in September,3 in NTUU “KPI” was dedicated to the problems of organization of physical and nuclear security training.
The deputy of Minister of education and science of Ukraine Maksym Striha, the manager of physical protection department of industrial security and labour safety of Ministry of Energy and Coal Indystry Viachyslav Luchkov, counsellor of Vice-president of National Academy of Science of Ukraine Yegor Dubynskyi, deputy of executive director of CAES for physical protection Eugene Katunin, first deputy of executive director of Ukrainian scientific and technology center (USTC) Igor Lytvynov, director of Training center for physical protection after George Kuzmych Institute of nuclear research of NAS of Ukraine Viktor Gavryliuk, specialists of state-owned company “NNEC “Energoatom”, “Ukratomprylad” corporation etc. took part in meeting.
Rector of university, academician of NAS of Ukraine Mychailo Zgurovskyi, dean of Faculty of Heat and Power Engineering, head of nuclear power stations and engineering thermal physics department Eugene Pysmennyi, director of research and methodology complex “Institute of Postgraduate education Inna Maliukova represented NTUU “KPI” at the meeting.
The level of participants signifies about the urgency of the problem: the issue of physical nuclear security has always been one of the most important in nuclear power industry and now, in terms of war it is becoming urgent as well. Maksym Striha spoke about that at the beginning of meeting: “The situation in Ukraine is too evident. It is associated with the reactors at NES, research reactor, great number of ionize radiating material; due to the war, great number of weapon…So, there is a series of very difficult questions with involvement of many government institutions, necessary for their solving. It is clear that it also refers to the scope of science interests of university and National Academy of Science as well. On the other hand, these problems are of great interest to other ministries, Energoatom etc. We are pleased to have opportunities to establish links with western partners, who may help to solve these problems…. Our task today is to consider and discuss the first variant of specialists training concept for nuclear security in order to arrive at some decision and then discuss everything in terms of contacts with our potential western partners”.
The task aimed at such kind of concept preparation has been created during the meetings with USTC – international intergovernmental organization aimed at engaging potential western donor partners of the project. Thus, after additional advisory support provided by Institute of nuclear research and its training center for physical protection after George Kusmych, the specialists of university together with the representatives of Center built up such a concept. It was presented by Eugene Pysmennyi. This concept envisages specialists training according to a particular area on the basis of “Nuclear power energy” speciality and “Physical nuclear security” area of expertise. The proposal regarding both Bachelor-level and Master –level program has been built up as well as new disciplines, academic hours, total costs for project implementation.
The discussion of concept transformed into debate, since, as representatives of Minenergo noted, there are no standardized principal provisions regarding physical nuclear security in Ukrainian legislation. Besides, there is no even official definition of this notion. Thus, it is impossible to develop bylaws that regulate issues regarding specialists training in this area. So, before implementation of studying in this area of expertise, it is necessary to prepare draft modifications to legal framework and approve them in particular bodies. This procedure requires some time, respectively. Another way out the situation could probably be another name of the speciality that, according to some specialists is not desirable because of existence of generally accepted terminology.
After live discussion, the participants reached the conclusion about the further preparation of project proposals in collaboration with potential western partners and simultaneous development of necessary bylaws. As Mychailo Zgurovski noted, since this problem is extremely important for our country, we have to work over all proposals, offered by our potential partners. “If we create good pilot project, when big government institutions expand this work, Ukraine will have great experience of how to do it. – he stated. This program may become the national program of nuclear security and will be supplemented by only legislation and other points.” In the end, rector suggested not only KPI to be the potential basis for similar preparation, but also other big technical universities that carry out training of future specialists for nuclear power industry.