IAEA Fellowship Program

Since April 2003, the Division of Educational Programs at Argonne National Laboratory (DEP-ANL), under funding of the U.S. Government, has administered the IAEA Fellowship Program for fellows who receive awards for training in the United States. A major responsibility of DEP-ANL is arranging suitable study or training programs for the fellowship candidates.
For more information: IAEA Fellowship Program at DEP

Decommissioning Fellowship Program

The Decommissioning Fellowship program has been established to facilitate the educational development of other staff relevant to the decommissioning of facilities. It is intended to be a program to consider in addition to that of attending a formal, short duration training course of a few days on the topic of decommissioning. The training course is normally conducted at a much faster pace and not in very much detail - typically these only last from 3-4 days.

The Decommissioning Fellowship program is highly flexible and can be tailored to the specific needs of the various parties who wish to use the program services. It might be conducted over a 2-week period or a longer period. It can even be integrated into the structure of a fellow who might wish to work on the Decommissioning Certificate Program (DCP) if that is desired by the organization as a part of the fellowship program. Many of the fellows we host are supported or coordinated through the International Atomic Energy Agency. We can make and have made arrangements for others as well - please contact us for full details.

We have two established types of Fellowships – the ‘Basic Fellowship’ program and the ‘Advanced Fellowship’ program. These have been found to work well and are established based upon a variety of factors. The main factors are the amount of background and expertise the fellow may have in decommissioning, the area of interest within the technical field and the stay time available for the fellow to visit the United States for their fellowship work/visit.

Please consider in your planning for your fellowship visit that the time required for all paperwork to be processed and approved can be lengthy – it is NOT a short process – so plan ahead and plan early for making your submittals of all required paperwork – that for fellowship approval, that for access paperwork processing for coming to the United States and that for site access clearances required from those who must approve your access to our site.

Basic Fellowship

Scope: The Basic Fellowship (BF) program is typically for someone with little or no prior decommissioning experience. The fellow is expected to have a basic working background from some work experience at a nuclear facility and to have some working knowledge of the field of study in nuclear science, health physics, engineering, quality assurance, ESH, project management or some other selected field of study with relevance to the nuclear field and/or decommissioning. Typically the BF program consists of two elements:

1. the basics of the facility decommissioning process and
2. several site visits to facilities of use in demonstrating the decommissioning principals -
   1. a visit to an on-going or completed decommissioning project sites and/or
   2. a visit to a D&D services vendor or equipment/technology suppliers site who offer or sell D&D equipment/services.

Duration: The minimum duration is 2 weeks and the maximum duration is 4 weeks.

Cost: Varies depending on the details of the program; please contact us.

Location: From our offices at Argonne National Laboratory. Lodging accommodations are available at the Argonne site.

Materials/Textbooks: Normally the ANS Decommissioning Handbook (2004 edition) is provided as a reference text to the fellows in both the Basic and Advanced programs. We provide training lecture notes to the fellow(s). Other detailed materials might include: relevant websites, samples of various periodical resources, other lecture handouts or other reading reference sources/materials and textbooks.

Advanced Fellowship

Scope: The Advanced Fellowship (AF) program is typically for someone with some level of prior decommissioning or related experience. The fellow is expected to have a strong working background from having worked at a nuclear facility and also to fully understand the basics of nuclear science, health physics, engineering, quality assurance, ESH, project management or some other selected field of study with relevance to the nuclear field. Typically the AF program moves at a faster pace and consists of two elements:

1. the study of some detailed aspect of the facility decommissioning process, and/or
2. several site visits to
   1. on-going or completed decommissioning project sites and/or
   2. service vendors or equipment/technology supplier sites who offer or sell D&D equipment/services.

Duration: The minimum duration is 2 weeks and the maximum duration is 4 weeks.

Cost: Varies depending on the details of the program; please contact us.

Location: From our offices at Argonne. Lodging accommodations are available at the Argonne site.

Materials/Textbooks: Normally the ANS Decommissioning Handbook (2004 edition) is provided as a reference text to the fellows in both the Basic and Advanced programs. We provide training lecture notes to the fellow(s). Other detailed materials might include relevant websites, other handouts, samples of various periodical resources, other reading reference sources/materials and textbooks.

Integration of a fellowship program within the context of earning the ‘Decommissioning Certificate’ through the Decommissioning Certificate Program (DCP)

In some cases, fellows may elect to integrate their fellowship within the framework of having previously obtained their Decommissioning Certificate Program (DCP) or within the framework of working on obtaining the DCP. Please notify us of this and contact us so that we can work with you to facilitate this process.

Fellowship program contact

Lawrence E. (Larry) Boing Manager, Special Projects Argonne National Laboratory 9700 South Cass Avenue / NE Division Argonne, IL 60439 P: (+1)-630-252-6729 F: (+1)-630-252-7577