A more than year-long journey examining national culture and its impact on nuclear safety culture in Japan reached a milestone on 30 July 2024 in Tokyo with the launch of the report Country-Specific Safety Culture Forum: Japan, which outlines the national characteristics reflected in the Japanese nuclear sector.
“This report provides us with important insights and understandings about the nuclear safety culture that I think will prove to be valuable for the long-term future both in Japan and around the world,” said NEA Director-General William D. Magwood, IV in his opening remarks. “It is essential that everyone in the Japanese nuclear community see this final report not as the end of the process, but only the beginning, and we at the NEA stand ready to support them in these efforts,” the Director-General added.
This new NEA report builds on the two-day discussions of the Country-Specific Safety Culture Forum organised in December 2023 with over 100 participants from Japanese nuclear operators, the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), as well as international experts and the local governments of Shizuoka, Fukui and Kagoshima. The event was preceded by an extensive data collection exercise in Japan which included 91 interviews and focus groups across the nuclear operations community and the NRA, gathering perspectives and information from 368 participants. The participants interviewed represent various levels and operational units within 11 nuclear power plant operators in the country, a fuel reprocessing company, and the Japanese nuclear regulator.
Representatives from nuclear operators and the NRA discuss report’s findings.
The report launch provided an occasion to reconvene the representatives from nuclear regulators and operators to discuss in depth the report’s key findings and the outlined 11 national characteristics that are reflected in the Japanese nuclear sector.
The event also featured perspectives from international experts from Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States and the World Association of Nuclear Operators Tokyo Centre.
International perspectives: Marc McBride, Deputy Professional Lead on Leadership and Management for Safety at the United Kingdom’s Office for Nuclear Regulation; Director International Affairs, WANO; Nina Cromnier, session moderator and Head of Division of Radiological Protection and Human Aspects of Nuclear Safety; Yeonhee Hah, Vice President for Global Activities, Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety; Andrea Kock, Deputy Office Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The report notes that while the Japanese nuclear community places strong emphasis on nuclear safety and, as such, already manifests many attributes conducive to a healthy safety culture, certain national traits, such as “fear of failure”, “don’t speak up” and hoshu-teki (conservativeness), can hinder workers from feeling confident about reporting any issues, whether safety-related or not.
The NEA invites the nuclear community in Japan and beyond to use this report as the basis for further exploration of its principal cultural traits and attributes through various introspective exercises and training activities in order to further strengthen safety culture within nuclear organisations.
About CSSCF
A healthy safety culture has long been considered essential to maintaining high levels of nuclear safety. To gain a better understanding of how a national context relates to safety culture and how operators and regulators should think about these effects in their day-to-day activities, the NEA and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) established the Country-Specific Safety Culture Forum (CSSCF).
After three CSSCFs, in Sweden in 2018, in Finland in 2019, and in Canada in 2022, CSSCF Japan was the first Forum conducted in Asia. Held in Tokyo in December 2023 in association with the NRA and the Federation of Electric Power Companies (FEPC), the event allowed for an in-depth exploration of the Japanese national characteristics and themes and their potential impacts on nuclear safety culture.
