World Nuclear Association champions international collaboration for nuclear safety at IAEA TIC 2026
World Nuclear Association contributed to high-level discussions on the future of international nuclear safety collaboration at the International Conference on Topical Issues in Nuclear Installation Safety (TIC 2026), organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna from 29 June to 3 July.
Held under the theme "Learning from the Past to Accelerate the Future," the conference brought together more than 400 senior experts and decision-makers from 65 countries to share lessons from decades of nuclear operations and explore how greater collaboration can support the next generation of nuclear projects.
The five-day conference covered topics including nuclear installation design and operation, regulatory innovation, construction, siting, safety assessment and the role of international cooperation in maintaining the highest standards of nuclear safety as global nuclear deployment accelerates.
The full conference programme is available on the IAEA website: https://www.iaea.org/events/tic2026.
International leadership essential to safely tripling nuclear capacity
World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León joined the opening plenary, Leading International Cooperation from the Top, alongside Ana Carrola (Foro Iberoamericano de Organismos Reguladores Radiológicos y Nucleares), Olivier Dubois (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire et de Radioprotection, France), Matthias Hübel (European Commission Directorate-General for Energy), Ramzi Jammal (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) and Marc Kenzelmann (Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate). The session was moderated by Karine Herviou, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security.
During the discussion, Bilbao y León highlighted the unprecedented opportunity created by the global ambition to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050 and stressed that international collaboration will be critical to delivering this safely and efficiently.
She emphasised that cooperation should evolve beyond simply sharing information towards actively embedding lessons learned across the global nuclear community. This requires collaboration to extend throughout organisations, enabling industry and regulators to work together as trusted peers while continuously applying operational experience and best practices.
“We need to make sure this collaboration is institutionalised and happens routinely, not occassionally.”
You can watch the opening plenary session on the IAEA livestream.
Sharing operational experience to strengthen fuel cycle safety
Allarakha Vora, Programme Lead, Fuel Cycle at World Nuclear Association, participated in the panel session Opportunities and Challenges in International Information Sharing and Collaboration, alongside Andreas Müller (Switzerland), Francisco Puente Espel (Spain) and Heather Keppen (United States). The session was chaired by Zachary Stone (IAEA) and Javier Esteve Otegui (France).
Vora presented a paper on collaboration opportunities, challenges and the path forward for the safety of nuclear fuel cycle facilities. He highlighted the important role of the Association's International Safety Assurance of Fuel Cycle Facilities (INSAF) Working Group in reinforcing global confidence in the safe operation of fuel cycle facilities. The contributors to the paper include Mahmoud Karam, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL); Allarakha Vora, World Nuclear Association; and Oscar Zurron Cifuentes, ENUSA.
By enabling members to share operating experience, identify emerging challenges and promote a culture of openness and continuous learning, INSAF supports continuous safety improvement while demonstrating the industry's enduring commitment to safety excellence.
Learning from experience to accelerate the future of nuclear safety
Throughout the conference, delegates explored how established safety principles can support the rapid deployment of advanced nuclear technologies while maintaining robust regulatory oversight.
Key themes included adaptive safety management systems, risk-informed regulation, regulatory sandboxes, expert panels, international collaboration initiatives, early regulatory engagement and the safety of emerging applications such as floating nuclear power plants, nuclear-powered vessels and maritime nuclear technologies.
Discussions also highlighted the value of engaging regulators early in the development process to improve licensing predictability, strengthen regulatory capability and build stakeholder confidence.
Since its launch in 1998, the TIC conference series has provided a global forum for exchanging experience and strengthening international cooperation on nuclear installation safety. As countries work towards expanding nuclear energy to meet growing demand for secure, reliable and low-carbon electricity, the conference reinforced that embedding lessons learned across the global industry will be fundamental to maintaining nuclear's strong safety culture.
