Impact: Nuclear
In September 2020, the IGC Impact Group on Gender Equality in Nuclear Regulatory Agencies was founded, under the shared leadership of Rumina Velshi, President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Heidi Hulan, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to UN Agencies in Vienna, and Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Having grown substantially to include many national regulatory agency leaders outside of Vienna over the past years, the Group became independent of IGC in early 2023, but continues to maintain a close partnership with IGC to share progress, tools and best practices.
Research shows that diversity not only solves labour force demands, but leads to increased innovation, resilience, competitiveness, creativity, and a healthy safety culture. That’s why it’s imperative for the nuclear sector, which relies on highly skilled and specialized labour, to engage with all available talent – particularly within underrepresented groups. Women represent one such minority in the nuclear workforce today.
The objective of the Impact Group is to create a community of heads of nuclear regulatory agencies and organizations that are committed to address gender equity issues in their institutions, countries and with international partners.
The group is taking collective action to improve gender equality and diversity in the nuclear regulatory workforce, including:
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Implementing policies and initiatives to recruit and retain women in the field of nuclear energy;
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Sharing visions and experiences of gender equality in the nuclear regulatory community;
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Promoting a workplace environment that values diversity, and that identifies and remove barriers to women in nuclear scientific and operations positions;
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Promoting gender parity on panels and in delegations;
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Supporting efforts to focus on youth education in order to build the female talent pipeline.
A group of countries and organizations [i] have signed or acknowledged a Charter that commits the signatories to advocate for and support the development of more gender responsive policies at the regulatory level.
A word from the co-chairs:
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“It rests on us – as leaders, as decision makers – to do everything in our power to encourage women to pursue a career in the nuclear sector. And to ensure that overt and unconscious barriers to their success are removed once and for all. The Impact Group will be instrumental as a means to help the international nuclear regulatory community embrace diversity and inclusion as inherent and indispensable values.” |
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“Impact Groups can identify gender ‘blind spots’ or opportunities and this group has enormous potential to bring change to regulatory agencies and the role of women in nuclear more broadly. This is an excellent example of how policy can translate into real world change.” |
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"Gender equality and the empowerment of women lie at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals and they are vital to fully realizing the rights and potential of everyone.” |
To find out more about the Impact Group, please contact us.
[i]
Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Canada
Czech Republic
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
India
Israel
Japan
Lithuania
Morocco
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Saudi Arabia (to acknowledge charter)
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States of America