CS 2008 "International comparison of stakeholder preferences of decision making processes in radioactive waste governance"

We investigated, at the international level, decision making processes (DMP) in site selection for nuclear waste disposal. The goal of the study was to make accessible important aspects of a DMP, in order to identify consensus and dissent in the DMP design among different stakeholder groups, and thus to provide the basis for an improved DMP. The study explicitly acknowledges the socio-political and technical-geological background of the countries. Work was conducted as a multiple-case study in Sweden and Switzerland. Direct comparisons between the countries are not at the core of our project. The target is to learn how societies can cope with the difficult issue by looking at two cases.

We applied a newly developed method which consists of five steps: (1) identify important aspects of DMP, (2) define attributes of these aspects, (3) assess preferences of matching combinations of these attributes (DMP variants), (4) communicate preferred variants among all stakeholders, (5) moderate a structured and temporally limited discourse to improve mutual understanding of different preference profiles; to make use of revealed fields of consensus and to find pathways to deal with revealed conflicts.

The study was conducted in the framework of an academic course (10 CP) at the ETH Zurich. The core phase of the project was between February and June 2008. The study is transdisciplinary in the sense that from each participating country key stakeholders are involved to help identifying aspects of DMP and analysing the socio-technical context of the DMP in site selection for nuclear waste disposal.

Guiding question

How do different stakeholders value different forms of interplay between technical expertise and societal input in decision processes for radioactive waste management? And how is this affected by different worldviews?

Three important terms carry a specific meaning for our research which we would like to define. First, the term 'stakeholder' refers to the different roles people have to play in the DMP. Second, the term 'worldview' refers to different 'beliefs' about technology and society (see below for more details) that the selected stakeholders hold. Third, the term 'forms of interplay' refers to the different functions (e.g. informing, acceptance, improving solutions), objectives (e.g. capacity building) and methods (e.g. form of communication) of interaction between experts, policy makers and members of society (e.g. people concerned).

Major project steps

Planning and concept phase have been completed and a first meeting of the International Transdisciplinarity Board held on 31 March 2008. Three stakeholder groups (implementer, political/technical regulator, municipal authorities) have been selected. A first screening of their worldviews has  been undertaken (N=147). Based on the results, two contrasting worldviews have been selected over all stakeholder groups and intensive interviews (Exploration Parcours-EP) were conducted (N=70). For these interviews aspects and respective attributes were identified extensive interview guides, both for Sweden and Switzerland developed. A second meeting of the International Transdisciplinarity Board has been held on 16 June 2008. The core phase of the case study was completed on 20 June with the elaboration of students' final report (internal working document only).

Follow-up

Final results were presented on 11 June 2009 in Sweden. The event was a big success with approx. 30 participants from all important stakeholder groups (SKB, SSM, MKG, 'KASAM', municipalities, etc.). A special honour was of course the presence of the Swiss Ambassador Robert Reich, who congratulated our team for the successful study.

A brochure of some major results has been published later in 2009 (see below).

People

• Headship: Prof. Dr Roland W. Scholz (overall responsibility, ETH), Dr Michael Stauffacher & Pius Krütli (operative co-management, ETH)
  
• Experts: Dr Thomas Flüeler (ETH), Dr Daniel Lang (ETH)
• International Transdisciplinarity Board: M. Aebersold (Switzerland, SFOE); P. Birkhäuser (Switzerland, Nagra); B. Hedberg (Sweden, KASAM); P. Huber (Switzerland, advisory group concept phase of the 'sectoral plan'); A. Klinke (Switzerland, EAWAG); J. Swahn (Sweden, MKG); S. von Stockar (Switzerland, SES); and further Prof. C.R. Brakenhielm (Sweden); Prof. H. Horii (Japan); L. Steinerová (Czech Republic); E. Atherton (UK); C. Pescatore, C. Mays (NEA-FSC), Prof. A. Vári (Hungary); K. Ptáčková (EU)
• Students: 16 MSc students (from various countries: Switzerland, France, Japan, China, Hungary, Ukraine, Germany)

Products

Case Study Book

• Schori, S., Krütli, P., Stauffacher, M., Flüeler, T., Scholz, R.W. (2009). Siting of nuclear waste repositories in Switzerland and Sweden - stakeholder preferences for the interplay between technical expertise and societal input. ETH-NSSI Case Study 2008. TdLab: Zürich. doi: external page10.3929/ethz-b-000628972call_made