Euratom

Today (5 December 2014) the European Union and Switzerland signed a comprehensive international agreement associating Switzerland to parts of Horizon 2020, Research and Training Programme of Euratom and the ITER project. This will see Switzerland participate in project consortia in eligible programmes on an equal footing with EU Member States, while financially contributing to these programmes with an estimated €400 million until the end of 2016.

The new contract for JET facilities has been signed on 6 June 2014 between the European Commission and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. It is a major EUR 283 million contract, under Article 10 of the Euratom Treaty that enables exploitation of JET - the world’s largest experimental magnetic fusion device - to continue until the end of 2018.

While nuclear medicine (specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease) and interventional radiology may give doctors life-saving technology to diagnose and treat diseases, the radiation emitted from the machines and systems could lead to some risks for the doctors.

There are many radiation sources, usually in low doses, from key medical diagnostic equipment to natural sources like radon gas that emanates from the ground. Until now, there has been little understanding of the low-dose radiation impact, but a European research project, DoReMi, is examining the potential health risks and how to protect against them.