SAFEGUARD GAME “THE IAEA INSPECTION IN AN IMAGINARY STATE”

Since 2006 the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) in collaboration with the Tomsk State University and the National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University has been organizing International Summer Schools on Nonproliferation Issues for students and graduate students from various Siberian universities. These Schools include active involvement of students into the development of education materials, which among other things resulted in the Textbook for students interested in non-proliferation regime, to be published in 2011. During the School practical exercises were also organized for reinforcing the knowledge acquired. One of these exercises took a shape of a Safeguards Simulation Game “The IAEA Inspection in an Imaginary State”. The Safeguards Game consists of the State Evaluation Report (SER) that serves as a scenario and the Task List broken down into sequence of questions. Students are divided in two teams: Inspectors and Clandestine Headquarters of the Imaginary State. Based on SER and available safeguards tools the Inspectors try to detect diversion of nuclear materials by identifying possible diversion routes and putting safeguards systems in place. In turn, the Clandestine Headquarters try to find a way to divert enough nuclear material for a nuclear weapon manufacturing. Thus both groups of players have to thoroughly consider safeguards procedures and tools in order to achieve their respective goals. The game usually ends with the comparison of Clandestine Headquarters’ diversion scenarios with safeguards measures proposed by Inspectors, followed by discussion. The Safeguards Game is directed towards the students already having some theoretical knowledge of non-proliferation regime and the IAEA safeguards system, but not fully understanding how it works. In a case of unaware players and for preparation purposes all necessary initial information about basics of nuclear physics, main components of nuclear fuel cycle, history of non-proliferation regime, IAEA safeguards and its tools can be found in the Textbook. Depending on the awareness level and educational background of players, the content of SER and extent of teacher participation may vary. Therefore the Safeguard Game may be either an educational or research activity for students