From 19 to 21 September, 2018, Kalinin NPP was hosting a training seminar of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the topic of the Basics of the Safety Culture (SC) and Leadership for Security.

The IAEA experts from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Prognoz Research Center, members of the safety culture self-assessment team of Kalinin NPP took part in it.

The visit was held within the framework of the IAEA and Rosenergoatom joint project titled Introduction of a System of Continuous SC Improvement Based on Regular Self-Assessments with IAEA Methodology.

Welcoming the seminar participants, Victor Ignatov, the Plant Manager of KlnNPP, stressed that along with the need to introduce technical security systems, it was equally important to form the employees’ attitude to safety as the highest value, to develop stable motivation for continuous improvement in them.

“We hope that it will result in practical recommendations to improve the safety culture and personnel’s actions self-assessment. Objective self-assessment makes it possible to anticipate and eliminate problems without allowing them to happen, and that is one of the basic conditions for a self-developing organization”, Viktor Ignatov said.

During the three-day visit, the IAEA experts presented a number of presentations on the topic of Leadership and Safety Culture, held focus groups, where they discussed the stated topics.

According to the head of the expert team Diana Engström, the methodology of safety culture self-assessment, based on the IAEA safety standards, provides an opportunity to assess the state of the enterprise’s safety culture and outline steps for its further improvement. “A strong safety culture and a true leadership in this area are critical for any nuclear plant”, Diana Engström noted.