Development of Safety Culture in the Republic of Belarus in 2020–2021

Safety culture is a very important tool to improve safety at nuclear energy facilities. It develops abilities of personnel to efficiently mitigate potential threats to nuclear and radioactive material, promoting correct attitude and behavior, as a consequence of which the personnel gain more stringent and cautious approach to their duties in the field of physical safety. In the companies with high culture of physical nuclear safety, the chance of a malicious act by personnel is hardly probable owing to persuasion that nuclear safety is important as well as owing to the factor of vigilance and professional compliance with the practices of physical nuclear safety. This article discusses the issue of development of safety culture in the Republic of Belarus in 2020–2021. This time period coincided, on one hand, with the commissioning of the first nuclear power unit in Ostrovets and, on the other hand, with the spread of COVID-19. The role of safety culture has increased as mentioned in some regulations approved in 2020. The role, the functions, and the requirements for safety culture have been formulated not only for the Belarussian NPP but also for the companies operating sources of ionizing irradiation. The current times are dealing with the spread of COVID-19. Introduction of sanitary norms added corrections to arrangement of measures required for formation and improvement of safety culture. This article presents the approach and summarizes the measures developed by Joint Institute for Power and Nuclear Research—Sosny, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, aiming at a higher level of safety culture.