Strengthening the national nuclear safety infrastructure of Member States-by organizing training events, elaborating international standards, and raising awareness-is among the core objectives of the IAEA. In support of that aim, the Agency recently launched a workshop to acquaint education and training specialists from the European region with the newest iteration of the Basic Professional Training Course on Nuclear Safety (BPTC), through its technical cooperation (TC) programme.

The workshop, held from 30 September-2 October, was attended by 14 participants from throughout the European region. Seven European Member States were represented in this workshop, namely: Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation and Ukraine, together with two experts from Spain and Romania.

The BPTC is aimed at assisting nuclear regulatory bodies, operating organizations and technical support organizations and other interested stakeholders in setting up training activities in the area of basic nuclear safety. In its previous form, BPTC has been used around the world and parts of it have been translated into various languages. The goal of the present revision is to summarize and present the content in "plain language," with necessary reference to the most recent IAEA standards and to the most important concepts, such as the safety fundamentals.

After a presentation of the TC project under which the event was organized, participants were invited to report on the continuing work of their respective institutions, particularly in the area of nuclear safety training. With all the participants up-to-date, the lecturers from the IAEA and the aforementioned invited experts provided an overview of the new BPTC, and how it might be applied in each national context.? The IAEA also collected valuable recommendations from the participants on the implementation of the new material.