Sogin becomes IAEA Collaborating Center

18 September 2019

​The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) designated today Sogin, within the IAEA General Conference ongoing in Vienna, with the prestigious recognition of Agency's Collaborating Center.

The ceremony of the award took place, during the 63rd General IAEA Conference, in the presence of the Italian Ambassador to the International Organizations in Vienna, Maria Assunta Accili, of Mikhail Chudakov, Deputy Director General and Head of the Agency's Nuclear Energy Department, and Luca Desiata, CEO of Sogin.

With this designation, Italy is among the first countries to be recognized by the Agency as a partner for technological promotion, knowledge transfer, education and training in nuclear decommissioning.

Therefore, Sogin is committed to provide its support to the IAEA, under the Programme “Nuclear Power, Fuel Cycle and Nuclear Science”, through: research and development activities in the fields of robotics and characterization tools, also in collaboration with international bodies and organizations; know-how sharing and training activities implementation; development of innovative tools for the planning, programming and implementation of decommissioning and waste management activities.

The dialog between Sogin and the IAEA experts started, on an ongoing bases, in 2017 with an independent Peer Review on Sogin’s decommissioning and radioactive waste management program, carried out by the IAEA at the request of the Italian government. Subsequently, in 2018, a Technical Review was carried out on the dismantling of the Garigliano and Trino Nuclear Power Plants reactor vessels, while this year the themes of sustainability and circular economy in nuclear decommissioning were examined in depth.

“Sogin – Deputy Director General and Head of the Agency's Nuclear Energy Department, Mr. Mikhail Chudakov declared – has significant experience in the field of knowledge transfer and training in nuclear decommissioning. The Agency is pleased to benefit from Sogin’s expertise and to help its sharing with our Member States”.

“With today’s ceremony – Sogin CEO, Mr. Luca Desiata declared – Sogin has been designated IAEA Collaborating Center, a prestigious international recognition that confirms the excellence of our know-how in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. The agreement continues a path of collaboration, started in 2017, which allowed us to receive the Agency’s authoritative advice on our nuclear decommissioning activities, which are truly complex from a technical point of view, also because they refer to plants that were not designed and built to be dismantled”.