Austria’s Minister for Europe, Integration, and Foreign Affairs Karin Kneissl was welcomed to the IAEA laboratories in Seibersdorf by Director General Yukiya Amano on Tuesday.
The visit included a tour of the Department of Safeguards Environmental Sample Laboratory followed by the Department of Nuclear Application’s Animal Production and Health Laboratory, Dosimetry Laboratory, and the Insect Pest Control Laboratory. The tour highlighted the IAEA’s multi-faceted work in the areas of nuclear safety, food and agriculture and human health, and emphasised the ways in which the laboratories respond to Member State needs. Senior staff in each laboratory provided an overview of their field of scientific expertise and nuclear techniques, and discussed the long-standing cooperation that the IAEA’s laboratories continue to enjoy with Austrian institutions.
Ms Kneissl offered words of appreciation for the Agency’s work, stating “I congratulated the staff of the IAEA laboratories for their excellent research work.”
The visit culminated at the Renovation of the Nuclear Applications Laboratories (ReNuAL) project construction site, where Mr Amano showed the progress being made on new specialised buildings – an Insect Pest Control Laboratory, a Flexible Modular Laboratory and a dosimetry bunker. The ReNuAL project will deliver these three new laboratory buildings to Seibersdorf in time for the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Science and Technology, which will take place in November 2018.