AKIPRESS.COM - The IAEA held an expert mission in Mongolia this month to assist the country in assessing their practices for nuclear management, human resource processes, training and competence development, knowledge capture and transfer, organizational culture and collaboration.

The IAEA Knowledge Management Assist Visit (KMAV) was conducted, at the national level, in Ulaanbaatar, from 3 to 7 December 2018, at the request of the National University of Mongolia and the Nuclear Energy Commission of Mongolia. In addition to the two hosts, the mission involved 16 other relevant organizations including universities, hospitals, research organizations, national laboratories, the nuclear regulatory body and other government offices.

The IAEA Team consisted of four experts from Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation and the UK, and two IAEA staff. During the mission, they also ran several nuclear knowledge management and human resources development training courses for various audiences at different locations.

Prior to the mission the participating Mongolian organizations completed, at a national level, a detailed Knowledge Management Maturity Self-Assessment. The analysis of the self-assessment revealed a significant gap between the current status of knowledge management practices and those the organizations would like to have in place in the future. For this, enhanced use of knowledge management methodologies and tools is needed are utilized to a greater extent.

The programme also involved a collective exercise of performing a detailed analysis of a possible national knowledge management programme to be established within five years.

“Main findings of the mission were related to the national policy on nuclear applications, nuclear education, research and development, cooperation with the IAEA, including additional nuclear knowledge management services that can be implemented in the near future,” said Huang Wei, Director of the IAEA’s Nuclear Planning, Information and Knowledge Management.

Among the recommendations of the KMAV team was organizing training sessions in knowledge management for senior managers and decision makers as key stakeholders. A policy and strategy document should also be developed.

The mission programme also included visits to the Nuclear Research Center and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the National University of Mongolia, as well as an award ceremony of four high school students who won a nationwide essay competition on the applications and benefits of nuclear science.

A similar national level KMAV mission was conducted in Indonesia in June 2018 with the objective of reviewing and supporting the KM programme development at the National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN).

A total of 41 KMAV missions in 25 countries have been conducted in the past 13 years, mainly at nuclear power plants, education and research organizations, and vendor/design organizations. Recently, KMAV missions have been introduced at national level in countries without nuclear power plant programmes.