2016 Volume 12 Pages 51-58
Issues to be considered from a viewpoint of nuclear engineering discipline, and issues to be considered from a perspective of STS discipline as well, are discussed on the basis of reflection of the Fukushima nuclear accident. From field experiences of public dialogue conducted prior to the Fukushima accidents, necessity of developing an efficient method to proceed from mutual trust building to social consensus formation has been identified as a key issue to be pursued. From attempts to provide messages of situation assessment during the accident, collaborative information collection and compilation conducted by multiple assessors with different background has been recognized as an effective approach toward trustable information provision. Post-accident activities have been carried out toward enhancing safety of nuclear facilities by applying a methodology called resilience engineering. A compact introduction of the methodology is provided. As for issues related to STS discipline, several inquiries have been mentioned concerning difficulties experienced by practitioners with engineering background. The central proposal in this paper for engineers and for STS specialists as well is that further efforts should be made to facilitate practical implementation of seemingly promising ideas and concepts.
