Security Culture for Radioactive Sources: Assessment, Enhancement, and Sustainability

The current emphasis on the need to protect radioactive sources from being used for malicious purposes makes it imperative to explore and shape an appropriate culture-based response in support of the global effort against WMD proliferation and terrorism. This paper proposes a roadmap for security management of radioactive sources with an emphasis on a security culture model, including self-assessment tools and a series of indicators as benchmarks to help take a culture’s measure and identify practical ways for improvements in security. It adjusts the existing International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concept and methodology for nuclear security culture to specific requirements for and mode of operation of radioactive sources. Though this IAEA security culture model in Nuclear Series Report #7 is designed as generic to be applicable to a wide range of operations involving nuclear and radiological materials, the modifications proposed in this paper are needed to make it user friendly and more focused on the security requirements of radioactive sources. This toolset can facilitate a more robust and sustainable security regime for radioactive sources throughout their life cycle, i.e. from cradle to grave.