The objective of the RISKGOV Project is to analyse and identify quality criteria for the governance of industrial activities giving rise to risks to people and the environment from radioactive and chemical discharges during normal operations. For this purpose, RISKGOV aims at: 1 analysing and comparing the elements contributing to the quality of governance systems associated with environmental discharges from nuclear and chemical installations; 2 providing a series of criteria to assess the quality of the governance of risk activities.
The analysis was performed by a multidisciplinary research team and based notably on interviews with key stakeholders directly involved in these innovative risk governance processes. The following dimensions were addressed: a The guiding principles of the decision-making process; b The role of expertise; c The stakeholders involvement process; d The factors integrated into the decision-framing and decision-taking processes; e The implementation of decisions and their review.
RISKGOV seeks to identify from its case studies examples of practices that can be emulated elsewhere as well as pitfalls and tension points from which positive lessons can equally be learned. The case studies show there are many ways of reflecting the themes and elements identified as important in a risk governance process.
The approach that is therefore proposed is that these themes and elements should be considered by the various stakeholders with a view to determining their relative importance in a given context and how they might best be achieved or implemented as appropriate. The first major step in this analysis was to achieve a grouping of the various themes and elements. Broadly speaking, following the initiation of the process, the Process Elements are seen as vital components that must be dealt with from the outset.
Insofar as these are successfully implemented, they are seen to produce and support a Governance Culture that is well adapted to deal with complex problems, respond to emergent issues and meet societal expectations regarding the governance of risk issues. This allows for the re-initiation of the process, and its' understanding as iterative, adaptive and evolving rather than as linear and deterministic. Insofar as a risk governance process operates in this way, the framework suggests that there is a higher probability of achieving or at least moving closer to the objectives of trust and confidence, acceptance and acceptability of decisions and sustainable development.
