The CONFIDENCE Project, funded under the H2020 CONCERT project, will perform research focussed on uncertainties in the area of emergency management and long-term rehabilitation. It concentrates on the early and transition phases of an emergency, but considers also longer-term decisions made during these phases. The project brings together expertise from four European Radiation Protection Research Platforms (NERIS, MELODI, ALLIANCE and EURADOS) and also from Social Sciences and Humanities, such that it can address the scientific challenges associated with model uncertainties and improve radioecological predictions and emergency management (NERIS and ALLIANCE), situation awareness and monitoring strategies (EURADOS), risk estimation in the early phase (MELODI), decision making and strategy development at local and national levels (NERIS) including social and ethical aspects (NERIS and Social Sciences and Humanities).
The work-programme of CONFIDENCE is designed to understand, reduce and cope with the uncertainty of meteorological and radiological data and their further propagation in decision support systems (including atmospheric dispersion, dose estimation, foodchain modelling and countermeasure simulations models). Consideration of social, ethical and communication aspects related to uncertainties is a key aspect of the project activities. Improvements in modelling and combining simulation with monitoring will help gaining a more comprehensive picture of the radiological situation and will clearly improve decision making under uncertainties. Decision making principles and methods will be investigated, ranging from formal decision aiding techniques to simulation based approaches. These will be demonstrated and tested in stakeholder workshops applying the simulation tools developed within CONFIDENCE. A comprehensive education and training programme is fully integrated with the research activities.
Scientists from the 31 partner organisations* from 17 European countries have met in Karlsruhe February 16 and 17, 2017, for the kick-off meeting of the project. Details of the work plan were refined and first steps defined. Links were identified with other ongoing projects (e.g. TERRITORRIES, also funded under the CONCERT project) and the project partners are very happy to share methods and results with their colleagues.
* KIT (Germany), BFS (Germany), NERC-CEH (United Kingdom), CEPN (France), CIEMAT (Spain), EPA (Ireland), EEAE (Greece), HMGU (Germany), IRSN (France), Mutadis (France), NMBU (Norway), NRPA (Norway), University of Zurich (Switzerland), DH PHE (United Kingdom), DTU (Denmark), RIVM (Netherlands), SCK-CEN (Belgium), STUK (Finland), UMIL (Italy), VUJE (Slovakia), KNMI (Netherlands), APA (Portugal), Dialogik (Germany), University of Warwick (United Kingdom), IST (Portugal), REC (Slovenia), DLO RIKILT (Netherlands), University of Extremadura (Spain), Met Office (United Kingdom), MTA EK (Hungary), NMI (Norway)
Further information can be found on the CONFIDENCE web page.