The State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM Hosted the International Seminar “Women in Nuclear and Public”

On September 21, 2017 the State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM hosted the International Seminar “Women in Nuclear and Public” in Moscow. The Seminar arranger was the Russian branch “Women in Nuclear Russia” of the international association WiN Global, the support was provided by the ROSATOM Social Council and the web portal “Russian Nuclear Community”.

The Seminar moderator was Alena Yakovleva, the coordinator and the president of the Russian branch “Women in Nuclear Russia” of the international association WiN Global, the head of the web portal “Russian Nuclear Community”, and the member of the ROSATOM Social Council. In her presentation she noted that “today it is more than ever essential to be devoted not only to favorite science, company and colleagues, but also to the public in global”.

“Our Seminar today is devoted to this very issue: the role, experience, abilities, and potential of women-specialists in public communications and popularization of the peaceful and safe use of nuclear and radiation technologies”, emphasized Alena Yakovleva in her opening speech. “Nuclear technologies play a major role in the human development and are able to upgrade considerably the standards of living and culture, and to help to preserve environment; but to do this, it is necessary to tell the public various targeted audiences about such technologies in a competent and interesting way, and may be to add to such a dialog some charisma, charm and harmony through intelligent and talented women, who deal with radioactive materials in all spheres of economy”.

Dr. Gabriele Voigt, the president of the international organization “Women in Nuclear Global”, presented in her speech information about the international organization “Women in Nuclear”. This organization was found in 1992 as volunteers’ network of women-specialists, who work in the nuclear industry. The goal of the organization is, first of all, to form a favorable public opinion in respect to nuclear power. Today the organization involves more than 35 thousand women-participants from 110 countries of the world.

The major content of Gabriele Voigt’s speech was devoted to the issues of the nuclear industry communication with the public.

“... on one hand, we shouldn’t be too emotional, but, on the other hand, it is important to show your concern dedication to the topic of concern”, said the president of WiN Global. “Disputing against radiophobia adherers, you should also intelligently address your opponents. Observing all these rules, you will earn respect as a human and as a specialist as well”.

According to her words, “nuclear power” is often associated by most people with accidents and nuclear weapons. For example, in Japan, the population of which before the accident at the Fukushima NPP was friendly to nuclear power development, but now they are of quite opposite opinion. This accident affected the other counties as well. Besides, we face “nuclear legacy” problems, that is why many people have negative attitude to nuclear industry. Specialists do understand the groundless nature of the most of such fears, and the aim is how to make this information clear to the public. On the other hand, when we mention nuclear power, people hardly ever have associations with, for instance, nuclear medicine, a huge sphere of radiotechnologies applied, for example, in the agricultural sector, water treatment, pest management and etc., which contributes to economic growth of many countries. The public possesses poor information about innovative technologies and strict safety requirements, reducing to a minimum the probability of nuclear accidents, which makes nuclear power the most safe sector of all.

In the opinion of Gabriele Voigt, one of the largest mistakes made by nuclear power workers was that they had little contact with the public, environmentalists, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and mass media.

“In order to change this situation now, “Women in Nuclear Global” are ready to communicate with the public. For example, when educating and teaching the young generation, we could excite their interest in science and engineering from the school age. And one more new and essential direction is social media. Taking into account that in many countries (for instance, according to data of inquiries in the UK) women constituted a majority among the nuclear power opponents; so it would be reasonable, that the women, working for the nuclear industry, were involved in such communication. It is important to contact with mass media and social media. Our best practices and contacts will do much good in this direction”, summarized the reporter.

To continue the topic, Natalia Semioshkina, the member of the international organization “Women in Nuclear Global” in Germany (“Women in Nuclear Germany”), told in her speech about “r.e.m.” (Radiation Environment Management) project aimed at upgrading of the public awareness of issues related to radioactivity, ionizing radiation, its biological effects and etc. In particular, she presented the examples of educational materials, which demonstrate that radioactive background, caused by a nuclear power facility operation is a negligibly small part, when compared with the natural background or, for instance, with the radiation exposed to during medical procedures or air travel.

Marina Labyntseva, the deputy director of the International Staff Training Center (ISTC), the head of the Saint-Petersburg branch of ISTC (“Rosatom Technical Academy”, the Leading Rosatom Organization to Support Embarking States in Nuclear Infrastructure Development), made a report on the topic “Experience in Public Relations in the course of Implementation of Regional and International Projects”. She told about meetings and seminars that were arranged in her presence in frames of the public consultation with regard to “Environmental Impact Assessment for a Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility” project, organized for the public and government authorities of the city Sosnovy Bor, travelling seminars to Sweden, Finland, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, and preparation to public hearings and public awareness campaigns. She also presented the basic principles, which provide the foundation for public relations.

Communication with the Mining and Chemical Combine (Zheleznogorsk) was arranged in frames of the Seminar. Oxana Zabelina, the head of Intercommunications Division of the Public Relations Department of FSUE Mining and Chemical Combine (MCC), presented the report “Experience in Implementation of Family Projects at MCC”. She told in details about the arrangement at MCC of such family projects, as, for example, a Doors Open Day in the MCC museum, a photo project “Nuclear Industry Worker Profession”; celebrations of the Knowledge Day and Children's Day; the project “Honour”; the MCC Day in the camp “Mining”; the children’s page in the corporate newsletter and etc.

Olga Evtushenko, the head of Public Relations Division of the JSC “Federal Center of Nuclear and Radiation Safety”, presented a report on the topic “Shaping of a Favorable Public Opinion through Implementation of Goodwill Projects on the Example of the Activity of Nuclear Specialists Organization”. In particular, she told about charity work on the example of Efremov Special Residential School in Tula Region.

Their experience in public relations also shared the representatives of a number of closed nuclear fuel cycle facilities, namely: Natalia Abramova, the deputy head for finance, economy and administrative management of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “National Operator for Radioactive Waste Management”; Alla Sidortsova, the chief specialist of the Public Relations Department FSUE “RADON”; and the report of Galina Dvorina, the leading research worker of JSC NIKIET, was also read off.

“At the wellspring of nuclear technologies there was a woman, that is Marie Curie. She was a twice Nobel laureate, the honorary member of 106 academies and scientific societies. An extract from her diary: “What is the future of my followers-women? Will they convince the society that they themselves decide their fate or they will go hat in hand to appeal for the high and mighties?” read Maria Parabina, the Category I design engineer of JSC NIKIET, the beginning of the Galina Dvorina report and finished it by the words “I’d like to wish to the “WiN Global” the beneficial material support from the male colleagues of the State Corporation Rosatom when involving female mentality into discussion of nuclear power safety issues, and to female colleagues - to remember the words of Marie Curie”.

Concerning the future plans of the international organization “Women in Nuclear Global”, Gabriele Voigt announced that the next WiN Conference is planned to be held 2018 in Bariloche (Argentina) conjointly with the International Youth Nuclear Congress, and in 2019 and 2020 in Madrid and Canada, respectively. For the 2021 they have applied for a meeting in Egypt, but there was also received an invitation from Japan; and, it is possible that some regular conference will ever take place in Moscow.

SEC NRS representatives at the Seminar were: Olga Nikitina, the chief specialist, and Elena Egorova-Orletinova, the leading specialist.

Российское отделение международного движения «Женщины атомной отрасли» было создано в 2017 году с целью развития и поддержки профессионального сообщества женщин-специалистов, работающих в атомной отрасли России. Основная миссия движения «Женщины атомной отрасли» – информирование и просвещение общественности, особенно женщин и молодого поколения, о преимуществах и перспективах развития ядерных и радиационных технологий.

Information source: information collection “Women in Nuclear Global”