The nuclear energy science and technology business becomes increasingly international because of:

• Reduced local or regional markets due to, often, the unclear future of nuclear energy and especially of advanced nuclear energy options needing long-term R&D
• Reducing national nuclear R&D-budgets and a liberalised energy market
• Increasing costs for (experimental) R&D-projects due to very specific needs, e.g. actinide research, new research reactors for materials and fuels irradiations, …
• Need to leverage available (scarce) knowledge resources , i.e. researchers and facilities
• Growing focus towards dissemination and transfer and exploitation of nuclear knowledge instead of production alone , i.e. economies of scale become important through international partnerships

The following figure shows today’s market environment for nuclear science and technology organisations (a more detailed description is given in a white paper), i.e.:

• A consolidation in the nuclear energy business during the 1990s has also changed the market conditions for a lot of nuclear R&D-organisations or created opportunities for rationalisation of R&D-programmes within consolidating companies.
• The more advanced needs for nuclear R&D, especially for experimental devices, increases the funding needs for R&D-programmes and thus the need to respond to an international demand.
• Companies as well as governments ask increasingly to nuclear R&D-organisations to comply with performance indicators (e.g. financial, scientific output, user facilities support, …) and (start to) link budgets to such performance measures.
• Finally, a reduced inflow of new nuclear engineering students and the rapid outflow of experienced professionals poses a risk for the knowledge management and may jeopardize the further (rapid) development of nuclear energy.

As a result of these trends in nuclear energy technology development business, international collaboration programmes, user facilities, industry-science relationships and most of all conducting programmes that respond to a need are essential key responses that nuclear R&D-organisations keep in mind in defining their future strategy.

There is therefore a need towards a truly international nuclear S&T community sharing people, facilities and knowledge by mutually reinforcing R&D-activities in networks of excellence as has been expressed by many actors in the field (see white paper (pdf or flash).

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