|
|
|
Home > Research > Our Research Concept
|
|
Our Research Concept
|
|
The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, BfS) has been assigned tasks, by the Act ruling the BfS establishment, in the fields of radiation protection, precautionary radiation protection, nuclear safety, transport of radioactive material, and radioactive waste disposal, including the establishment and operation of Federal facilities for safeguarding and final disposal. In these fields BfS gives technical and scientific support to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
The Atomic Energy Act and the Radiation Protection Ordinance stipulate that decision-making on radiation protection, establishing, operating and decommissioning of nuclear facilities in Germany is liable to the basic requirement of observing the state-of-the-art of science and technology. BfS therefore is required to assess, describe and advance the state of scientific and technical knowledge.
In order to fulfil this basic requirement, BfS initiates and awards research and investigation contracts to third parties funded by the environmental research plan (Umweltforschungsplan, UFOPLAN). BfS also conducts research on its own behalf, in particular into the field of radiation protection. In addition, BfS co-operates with national and foreign universities and institutions. Within the scope of EU research projects, BfS takes part in international co-operations and research associations aimed at answering to generic and fundamental questions in the field of radiation protection and precautionary radiation protection.
Our Task: Mission-Oriented Research
BfS research is departmental research, establishing basic principles and decision guidance for proper work and appropriate fulfilment of present and future tasks of BfS and BMU.
Departmental research involves the effort to pick up questions from the political-administrative area, transform them into scientific problems, work on these problems using state-of-the-art methods and procedures of science and technology, analyse the results and prepare them as to both the implementation in guidelines, rules and regulations, and their use in everyday practice. In the opposite sense, departmental research also helps to identify important developments and new findings from research and science and to point out the associated problems and needs for action and decision making on the political and administrative levels.
Departmental research thus comprises purely scientific work to be done using appropriate methods, but it also implies a series of complex procedures, to be performed additionally, i.e.:
- To analyse the present and future need for information on the political and administrative levels
- To identify the need for scientific findings and specify scientifically treatable problems
- To define the depth of the scientific work to be done, considering the purpose of the department’s task
- To process the scientific results in order to make an optimal contribution to the department’s tasks
- To communicate the results to, and prepare them for the particular target-persons and stakeholders on the political and administrative levels of action and implementation, in the professional world and in the interested public.
Our Strength: Scientific Competence
Professional competence is a condition precedent to science-based fulfilment of BfS tasks. The BfS staff members have high levels of expertise and scientific competence recognized on the national and international levels. Many BfS scientists are members of national and international expert panels by virtue of their expertise and experience.
On account of its expertise, BfS is a partner of international institutions and is engaged in many networks and co-operations on the scientific, advisory and regulatory level. The scientific work done by BfS and its staff members is reported via publications in professional journals and at congresses to the scientific community and via reviews in popular science magazines, on the Internet and at information events to the interested general public.
Our Challenge: Multidisciplinary Co-operation
Our understanding of the physical, chemical, biological, medical and ecologic mechanisms and interrelations occurring within our task areas is based on a natural-scientific approach, but socio-scientific and societal as well as economic and legal aspects also are component parts of our interdisciplinary research. Our research is aimed at early detecting upcoming impacts of recent scientific findings, technical innovations, and changes within society, as far as the above task areas are concerned, and at providing scientific findings in due time, as appropriate.
Our research work thus provides important fundamentals and preconditions to align the safety level in nuclear technology and radiation protection with the advancing state of science and technology, to account for the protection requirement of the general public, to assess potential hazards for man and environment from uses of ionising and non-ionising radiation and radioactive substances and of nuclear energy, to minimize associated risks and to ensure the best possible level of radiation protection in terms of precaution.
Our Standard: Research providing Optimum Support to Task Fulfilment
High-quality departmental research is only obtained when the above-listed complex procedures are observed and fulfilled. Departmental research then provides a scientifically confirmed and reliable basis for ongoing and future decision-making, thus vitally contributing to responsible fulfilment of the tasks assigned.
In other words: Departmental research is interlinked with official tasks and therefore requires not only scientific competence but also detailed knowledge of administrative procedures and long-time experience as to the feasibility of implementing scientific findings into regulatory practice. Only when these competences are combined, our departmental research will comply with actual requirements, i.e. come up to both the state of science and technology and to the needs of practice.
|
|
Printer safe version
|
|
|
