ROLE OF ESARDA AND ITS CURRENT R&D EFFORTS.

The peaceful use of nuclear energy has substantially increased worldwide during the last decade. At present about 400 power stations are connected to the grid providing a total capacity of 280 GWe. According to present day projections a further increase is to be expected. The activities of the ESARDA Working Groups are mainly focussed on specific questions arising from safeguards practice such as estimation of measurement errors to be expected and comparison exercises. An outline of current R&D efforts of the Working Groups as well as a report on the London Symposium are presented in this paper.