Dear friends, 

After another unpleasant rise in the numbers throughout the world at the beginning of this year, the COVID tide is finally turning downwards. The worldwide as well as the German outlook is increasingly positive, with politics paving the way by successive opening steps and ever less travel constraints. Thus, the SMiRT 26 team is encouraged in organising the conference in July as in-person event.

As of that, you will find the registration for SMiRT 26 open and more than 300 people have already registered. Catch the momentum and join us now; register as long as Early Bird conditions are open. Scroll through the website pages and discover what else is new. 

Join the discussions under our motto “Building the future on 50 Years of experience – It’s SMiRT to embrace change”. Share state of the art developments, scientific and technological innovations, and present your company to the audience. SMiRT 26 will bring leaders – such as IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi –, managers and engineers from around the world together to drive innovation for safe, reliable and efficient nuclear energy in the face of the global energy transition. The conference will make a significant contribution to the safety and reliability of nuclear facilities all over the world. It will also help to build, advance and retain scientific-technical expertise and to support young engineers and researchers in the area of nuclear safety. Do not miss the Jaeger Lecture on “Airplane Impact on Nuclear Installations”. 

We also invite you and your companies to look at the possibilities to support the conference through sponsorships or participating in the exhibition and join the companies that have already signed up. 

 Jörg Aign
Conference Chair

SMiRT 26 will continue the Early Career Shibata Award. The objective of the award is to identify and recognize outstanding work of young and early career professionals, defined here as participants who have earned a Bachelor’s degree within 10 years of July 2022.

At the time of registration, authors have to indicate if they want their paper to be considered for the Heki Shibata Early Career Award. The early career professional must be (a) the first author of the paper, and (b) the presenter of the paper at the conference. The ISC Division Coordinators will identify papers for further consideration. An expert panel will then rank these papers based on technical merit and innovation, and a member from the expert review panel will attend the presentations of these top ranked papers. Finally, the expert panel will rank the papers using a composite ranking of 70 % for paper content and 30 % for the presentation. A total of 3 awards will be presented - a cash award of €1000 and a free conference registration at the next conference (SMiRT 27) for the winner, and cash awards of €500 and €250 for the first and second runners up, respectively.