ANSN Project History
The History of ANSN in brief:
There is a great amount of information relevant to the safety of nuclear installations which is currently not properly analysed and shared worldwide. In the Asian region, in particular, relevant safety information is being accumulated owing to the construction and operation of nuclear power plants of different designs.

The added value of the network to the safety practices in the region is to establish a mechanism to pool, extract, analyze and effectively share new and existing nuclear safety information among stakeholders.
When fully implemented the network will allow a mutual learning process in the frame of the Extra Budgetary Programme, through an easy and rapid retrieval of existing and new nuclear safety information. This will facilitate and advance the introduction of established as well as the development of new nuclear safety practices in the Asian region and prevent undue duplication of work and associated costs.
The ANSN project initially focussed on Education and Training. Later the scope has been widended with the establishment of topical groups were established to strengthen the knowledge sharing in specific areas. Currently topical groups for Safety Assessment of research reactors,
Project highlights:
  • February 2002. The ANSN project was initiated in February 2002. Initially project scope, time frames and pilot phases were discussed
  • December 2002. The first prototypes were developped. Project scope, classification schemes (Taxonomy) and metadata has been agreed upon. A pilot project to assess the usefulness of the project is initiated
  • December 2003. Pilot web sites and databases have been developped and evaluated. The pilot project now included 4 web sites and the database contained several hundred documents related to Education and Training.
  • August 2004. Web sites are under development in several countries. The ANSN database contains more than 1000 documents. Topical groups for Research Reactor Safety Assessment, Operational Safety and Education and Training are being established
  • March 2005. First issue of the biweekly ANSN newsletter is published.
  • June 2005. ANSN web sites and databases are now operational in 9 countries.
  • December 2005. A new common design for the ANSN web sites is being implemented. Several new countries have applied for membership. 3 new Topical groups are under consideration: Safety Standards, Emergency Preparedness & Response and Safety Management of Research Reactors.