PIME Conference 2012

For two days, representatives of institutions involved in the day-to-day public communication of the nuclear power industry discussed and presented their achievements at the PIME conference, held this year in Warsaw. Plenary sessions and thematic workshops discussed issues and challenges that arose after the events of Fukushima in March 2011. It was therefore no surprise that this issue dominated this year’s conference. During the discussions, questions arose repeatedly about the extent to which Fukushima changed the ways and emphasis of communication and public education, what exactly should be communicated in the media and whether or not this has been done successfully so far, how we can regain the trust of the public after the events of Fukushima, especially those who intend to build nuclear power plants in their countries.

The organisers of the workshop prepared for young conference participants – Workshop I Young Generation Network: Preparing for nuclear new build: get on the bus! – was the ‘Atomic Bus – Mobile Laboratory’ project carried out by our Foundation in 2010. The President of the Foundation, Łukasz Koszuk, was invited to give a short introductory talk, during which he presented the entire project. During the workshop, young representatives from Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Finland discussed the challenges their countries face when deciding on and implementing the construction of a nuclear power plant. Our task was to plan communication activities, responding to the needs of the respective country, carried out during the stops of the ‘nuclear information bus’, which set off during the workshop on a virtual journey through Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Finland. From the Foundation’s side, volunteer Kasper Rybak also participated in the conference.

PIME (Public Information Materials Exchange) is a conference organised by the Europan Nuclear Society in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, FORATOM and the Nuclear Energy Agency. PIME is the only conference where representatives of organisations from all over the world involved in public communication in the nuclear field have the opportunity to exchange experiences and to gain and at the same time share their expertise (know-how). For more information visit: http://www.euronuclear.org/

We would like to thank the European Nuclear Society organisation very much for the opportunity to participate and present our project during the PIME conference, with special thanks to Ms Emilia Janisz.