Thanks to the generous voluntary contributions of 14 Member States in 2017, the renovations of the IAEA’s nuclear applications laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria advanced significantly last year.
The upgrades will improve the IAEA’s capacity to support Member States in the use of nuclear techniques in food and agriculture, human health and the environment, as well as the use of new nuclear scientific instruments. The modernization projects, known as Renovation of the Nuclear Applications Laboratories (ReNuAL) and ReNuAL Plus (ReNuAL+), are initiatives to enhance the laboratories’ equipment and infrastructure and construct new buildings.
The laboratories opened in 1962, and had not undergone any renovations nor received major equipment upgrades until the ReNuAL project began in 2014.
Cash contributions to ReNuAL, which ran from 2014 to 2017, and the follow-up project ReNuAL+, which began last year, have amounted to more than €32 million from Member States, including €8.7 million during 2017. In addition the IAEA has also received equipment under various partnerships. Each contribution has been vitally important in moving the construction ahead. Alongside traditional donors such as the United States, Japan and Western European governments, an increasing number of middle-income countries have contributed to ReNuAL and ReNuAL+.
