23 September, 2020 – On the margins of the 64th General Conference, the IAEA marked 20 years of the IAEA International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO). Director Genreal of the State Coorporation Rosatom Tech took the opportunity to award distinctions for a significant personal contribution to the INPRO development, and the active global promotion of nuclear technologies. These, which are seen as the ROSATOM’s recognition for the international promotion of nuclear technologies, were awarded to Mr Zoran Drace as the first Head the INPRO Section in the Department of Nuclear Energy at the IAEA, and to two of his colleagues from Germany and the USA.

The idea to establish INPRO was initiated by Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the president of the Russian Federation in 2020 with the aim of putting the leaders of advance nuclear technologies and their potential users on the same level. The INPRO activities are coordinated and endorsed by the EU and 42 INPRO Members, the results are available to all IAEA Member States although only the representatives of INPRO Members take part in various activities. The resources mostly come from the Russian Federation and the USA, and, to a lesser degree, from India, China, South Korea, Germany, France, Canada, Poland and Japan.

Even though the Republic of Serbia is still not a member to INPRO, the fact that Mr Zoran Drace has lead this project for years, and that in this period INPRO gained its independence within the IAEA, is of great importance for our country.

INPRO is primarily concerned with the long-term sustainability of nuclear facilities and their fuel cycles, as well as modelling global scenarios of nuclear energy development and applications.