Why to choose this program
When we talk about any nuclear installation such as nuclear power plants, research reactors, casks for the transport of nuclear fuel, storages or depositories of spent nuclear fuel, we always have to consider its safety. The word "safety" is often connected to so-called nuclear safety, which is not accurate or sufficient. When we talk about safety, i.e., protecting the population, environment, and staff from adverse effects of radiation, three essential safety components must be considered: nuclear safety, radiation protection, and emergency preparedness. The primary purpose of nuclear safety is to maintain control over the fission chain reaction in a nuclear installation and prevent the release of ionising radiation and radioactive materials into the environment. The primary purpose of radiation protection is to protect the population, the environment and staff from the potentially harmful effects of ionising radiation. The primary purpose of emergency preparedness is to identify potential adverse events in a nuclear installation and its management.
In addition to safety, it is necessary to consider the security of all nuclear installations, which means protecting nuclear installations, nuclear materials, and sources of ionising radiation from misuse by unauthorised personnel. Security of nuclear installation consists of three essential areas - physical protection, cybersecurity and information security. The security of a nuclear installation is always associated with the potential threat of terrorist attacks on nuclear installations, attempts to misuse nuclear or materials of dual-use, cyber-attack attempts on nuclear installations, etc.
Bachelor's, master's and doctoral study programs in the Czech Republic and the world focus almost exclusively on nuclear safety and radiation protection. Education of nuclear safety and radiation protection in the Czech Republic is currently covered by several bachelor's, master's and doctoral study programs, e.g. at the Department of Nuclear Reactors and the Department of Dosimetry Applications of Ionizing Radiation FNSPE CTU. Emergency preparedness and security (physical protection, cybersecurity and information security) of nuclear installations are not covered by any study program (neither in bachelor's, master's or doctoral study programs) in the Czech Republic. General cybersecurity is covered by bachelor's and master's study programs at the Department of Computer Systems FIT CTU. Only one university in the Netherlands, one university in Germany and five universities in the USA offer master's programs in the security of nuclear installations or materials. This study program covers the gap in the training of future experts in emergency preparedness of nuclear facilities, security of nuclear facilities and the ir synergies.
Nuclear materials, radionuclides, and sources of ionising radiation are used in nuclear power engineering and are also used in medicine and industry. FNSPE students are well acquainted with the se applications in the already existing doctoral study programs Nuclear Engineering, Radiological Physics or Nuclear Chemistry. However, the se programs do not have the same goals and do not fully consider the second aspect: the safety and security of nuclear installations. This doctoral program is mainly focused on safety and security in the management of mentioned sources of radiation, detection and identification of nuclear and radioactive materials, solving the issue of radiation protection in workplaces with the se sources, searching and analysing such substances in the environment and the development and application of computational models for the determination of external and internal irradiation.
Nuclear forensic sciences are inextricably linked to nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry, which provide the forensic sciences with many supporting chemical, detection and analytical techniques. The main objectives of nuclear forensic sciences include determining the or igin, nature, and isotopic composition of captured or collected nuclear materials and the determination of the routes of movement of these materials and the ir intended use. The primary to ol for achieving this goal is to analyse so-called "fingerprints" - sets of characteristics that determine the or igin of the analysed materials. Radioactive materials are also released into the environment by emission from various non-nuclear industrial facilities during the ir operation or possibly during accidents in such facilities. In addition to that, radioactive and nuclear materials are released into the environment during military operations or terrorist attacks (nuclear weapons, "dirty bombs"). In many cases, the identification of critical nuclides is insufficient or even impossible by conventional physical or chemical analytical methods. Thus, it is often necessary to use more sensitive analytical methods to determine low concentrations of such nuclides.