SMRS & ADVANCED REACTORS | INPRO A NESA identifies areas where a system does not yet meet
sustainability criteria, guiding (R&D) to improve the design. It helps governments and utilities compare different nuclear to make informed policy decisions. While the IAEA provides training and manuals, the assessment is typically a self- assessment performed by national experts. In his address marking INPRO’s 25th anniversary, Chudakov described the INPRO Methodology as the foundation of their crucial support. “This methodology enables comprehensive nuclear energy system assessments, helping experts evaluate nuclear power systems according to metrics in environment, safety, proliferation resistance, waste management, infrastructure and economics. It’s a robust framework that has helped more than two dozen countries perform national or joint studies to determine nuclear power system sustainability. And it’s a dynamic tool that has evolved over the years to enhance usability and reflect current trends.”
Integrating INPRO In 2004, INPRO underwent a significant shift from being a purely member-funded project to a partially integrated Agency subprogramme. While it remained primarily dependent on extra-budgetary resources, the transition introduced stable, long-term support for its core coordination. From 2004, the IAEA’s Regular Budget began to directly fund two essential core positions for the first time: one professional post (to provide stable leadership and project management); and one general Service post (to provide administrative and secretarial support). These changes formalised INPRO as an Agency-wide
A regional IAEA INPRO School was held in Uzbekistan in 2024 Source: IAEA
project coordinated by the Department of Nuclear Energy. The IAEA began providing basic office space, utilities, and IT infrastructure from its central Regular Budget Fund, which had previously been covered or subsidised by member donations. Activities were aligned with the IAEA’s biennial Programme and Budget cycle, ensuring INPRO’s goals were reviewed as part of the Agency’s broader mandate. However, the vast majority of INPRO’s technical work remained extra-budgetary. Member states continued to provide project-specific funding and
the project still relied heavily on Cost-Free Experts (CFEs) for technical depth. After the budget transition in 2004, INPRO moved from theoretical development into a high-impact validation and application phase marked by the practical testing of its sustainability framework through real-world case studies and the launch of Phase 2. The most critical milestone immediately following the transition was the validation of the INPRO methodology. In June 2004, reports from 14 national and individual case studies were submitted to the IAEA. These studies tested the methodology’s effectiveness in assessing innovative nuclear systems (INS). Feedback from these studies led to the official update of the assessment manuals, which were presented to the INPRO Steering Committee in late 2004. Following the success of Phase 1, the 9th Steering
Committee officially moved the project into Phase 2 in July 2006. This phase shifted the focus toward institutional and infrastructure aspects, moving beyond hardware to look at the legal and social frameworks needed for sustainable nuclear power. INPRO began to organise collaborative projects, initiating joint research between member states to solve common technical challenges. In 2008, INPRO published a comprehensive set of nine updated manuals on its methodology. By 2010 member states were performing NESAs using the refined tools. The results of these national assessments were compiled and published in late 2009, marking the project’s transition into a practical service for decision-makers. However, INPRO’s growing membership has provided
stable support. Currently INPRO has 49 members – notably, the US did not become a full member of INPRO until around 2010, although it participated in specific collaborative projects and provided some funding through the Peaceful Uses Initiative (PUI) toward the end of that first decade. The most recent countries to join were Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Mongolia, Sudan, and Nigeria. INPRO Section Head Carolynn Scherer told NEi that a number of IAEA member states that had reduced nuclear in favour of renewables were now facing challenges. “I expect some of our member states and INPRO might become more engaged again because nuclear is not the bad energy source that it was labelled to be couple years ago. It’s now labelled as a green energy source. I’m expecting countries to come back. We recently picked up, in the last two years, five new member states in INPRO.” INPRO’s collaborative projects (CPs) allow members
to pool resources and expertise to develop tools and frameworks that enhance nuclear sustainability. Major
completed collaborative projects include: ● GAINS (Global Architecture of Innovative Nuclear Systems): this developed an analytical framework for dynamic scenario analysis to identify sustainable global nuclear architectures.
● SYNERGIES: This modelled collaboration between countries to identify “win-win” strategies in the nuclear fuel cycle.
● PROSA (Proliferation Resistance and Safeguardability): This created tools to assess the proliferation resistance of new reactor designs.
● WIRAF (Waste from Innovative Types of Reactors and Fuel Cycles): This addressed the early identification of problematic waste from advanced reactors.
● ROADMAPS: This developed a structured approach for countries to plan their transition to sustainable nuclear systems.
42 | May 2026 |
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