Feedback on operating experience from nuclear power plants is intended to help avoid occurrence or recurrence of safety-significant events. Well-established feedback systems exist on the national and international levels. One such example is the Incident Reporting System (IRS), jointly operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA).

This technical opinion paper presents the international systems used to collect operating experience, the role of recurring events within them, examples of recurrence and ideas about how to improve the situation. It is expected that managers in both nuclear utilities and regulatory bodies, persons involved in operating experience feedback and analysis, inspectors and technical support organisation staff will be interested in this publication.