NEA Committee Structure

The NEA secretariat serves seven specialised standing technical committees under the leadership of the Steering Committee for Nuclear Energy - the governing body of the NEA - which reports directly to the OECD Council.

The standing technical committees, representing each of the seven major areas of the Agency's programme, are comprised of Member country experts who are both contributors to the programme of work and beneficiaries of its results. The approach is highly cost-efficient as it enables the Agency to pursue an ambitious programme with a relatively small staff that co-ordinates the work. The substantive value of the standing committees arises from the numerous important functions they perform, including:

• providing a forum for in-depth exchanges of technical and programmatic information;

• stimulating development of useful information by initiating and carrying out co-operation/research on key problems;

• developing common positions, including "consensus opinions", on technical and policy issues;

• identifying areas where further work is needed and ensuring that NEA activities respond to real needs;

• organising joint projects to enable interested countries to carry out research on particular issues on a cost-sharing basis.