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The following submission is from John Twining

Dr Brenda Howard from the U.K. Centre for Environmental Health (with the assistance of the Environment Agency and colleagues across the EU) is currently preparing a submission to the parent research council (Natural Environment Research Council) to get support to run a training course, primarily focussed on the ERICA Tool but also considering other models where appropriate and wider aspects of radiological environmental protection. Many of these were considered in the first IAEA EMRAS Program and as part of the EU funded PROTECT Program. As part of the case the proponents are canvassing the wider community on whether there is a need for a course, and whether there would be interest in attending the course.

The course would cover the different elements of the assessment tools and be aimed at users such as regulators, industry, consultants etc. The application covers 4 separate training courses over a 3 year period, but we envisage that it might be self sustaining after that. In addition, there will be a website with web-based training materials and which will also serve as an information source for on-going activities (i.e. in effect an update and continued maintenance of some of the PROTECT pages).

We also hope that there would be additional benefits of the interaction in terms of informing potential funding bodies of the strengths and weaknesses of the current tools available and thereby focussing their attention of the type of research that needs to be done, and also enhancing the potential inputs into the Theme 2 databases, and liaison with the ERICA Tool consortium. There are also potential benefits from interaction with the EMRAS Theme 2 groups.

So... the question is - please could you let Brenda know if your organisation would be interested to attend such a course, and if so how many potential participants you think might be interested. Technically, the reply period is passed but I'm sure that she would still love to hear from you if you or your organisation has any interest. One of the potential options is to export the training to other countries of regions and, hence, this has a good potential for SPERA involvement.

Dr Howards email address is bjho@ceh.ac.uk