On October 1 2020, ORIENT NM (ORganIsation of the EuropeaN Research CommuniTy on Nuclear Materials) will officially kick-off.

ORIENT NM is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) led by the coordinator of the EERA Joint Programme on Nuclear Materials and CIEMAT researcher, Lorenzo Malerba, that answers the Euratom WP 2019-20 call NFRP-08.

Nuclear power has a role to play in the energy transition. More specifically, materials are a key part for the safety, efficiency, and economy of nuclear energy. Hence the importance of funding research on nuclear materials through stable instruments and encouraging cooperation between countries, which is the aim of a partnership.

The 15 project beneficiaries from Spain, Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Belgium, and other countries will strive to achieve this objective by:

• Producing a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for materials for all nuclear fission reactor generations (until 2040), consistent with national programmes and industrial needs.
• Developing an efficient governance and legal structure, including attention for decision-making processes, intellectual property issues and promotion of innovation, as well as an implementation scheme.
• Identifying appropriate ways of interaction with other bodies and initiatives that bear connections with nuclear materials, including international organisations, standardisation bodies, technical safety organisations, fusion and non-nuclear energy communities.

All the above will be done in close dialogue with Member States and European Commission, as well as all other stakeholders.

The key outcomes are expected to be: a) Critical assessment of the added value of a partnership on nuclear materials; b) Vision paper and Strategic Research Agenda (SRA); c) Structure, governance, legal aspects and implementation; d) Set of protocols for the interaction with other interested parties.