President ' s Review 2021 / 22
As I come to the end of my first year as President , it is with some degree of satisfaction and optimism that we are at last getting back to some sort of normality , albeit rather different to before the pandemic .
Our 2021-22 year started at the Annual Conference which was held in Bournemouth . It was our first attempt at a hybrid event , with attendees both in person and online . As those who attended will attest , it wasn ' t without some technical teething problems , but was nonetheless well-received . For those of us who made the trip to Dorset it was wonderful to be back to face-to-face interactions and networking with our fellow RP professionals at a Conference .
In my address as incoming President at the Conference I committed to continuing with the initiatives started by my predecessor Pete Bryant , namely :
• SUSTAINABILITY of the Profession and Society
• Working in SYNERGY with other organisations , and
• Improving COMMUNICATION with Internal and External Stakeholders
The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to influence the way in which SRP operates although we have still been able to make some progress on these initiatives .
As an ongoing example of Synergy , our webinar programme run jointly with AURPO has continued to go from strength to strength , delivering a host of useful topics and proving of interest to members and non-members alike . As I write , we have run 22 webinars to date , with an average of over 280 attendees per webinar about 60 % of which were members of either SRP or AURPO and the remaining 40 % coming from non-members within the UK and internationally . As reported previously , SRP and AURPO have committed jointly to continue to provide these free of charge to maximise their impact for the good of our profession , and as part of our outreach programme .
Another example of Synergy has been our involvement in the response to the announcement by the International Commission on Radiological Protection ( ICRP ) of the beginning of consultations on new recommendations to be published towards the end of the decade . SRP has formed a small task group under CLIPS to feed into the International Radiation Protection Association ( IRPA ) group on this . We have also had direct discussions with ICRP on how we can contribute to their consultations .
In terms of Communication , one of the great successes of the last year has been the publication of the first two issues of our new magazine Radiation Protection Today . In response to the very positive feedback received , we have decided to continue to produce the magazine twice yearly . The third issue is currently at the final editorial stage and will be ready to be sent out to members by June .
Another key aspect that we need to continue to work on is to develop further guidance for members on a range of subjects , including communicating risk to the public , the media , and our other stakeholders .
Furthermore , on the subject of Communication , at the Annual General Meeting in Bournemouth it was agreed that we would be involved in Her Majesty The Queen ' s Platinum Jubilee by having an article on the Society written for the Jubilee Commemorative Book . A small editorial group was formed that reviewed and finally approved the article , and the book will be published at a launch event in early June , with a projected readership across the UK and the Commonwealth of over 2 million .
Sustainability is certainly a current buzzword and the winner of the YPA award at the 2021 Conference was Kathryn Ambrose from Sellafield Ltd with her talk on “ Doing Safety Sustainably ”. However , in terms of sustainability of the RP workforce we continue to look for opportunities to address the shortfall in students choosing to study Science , Technology , Engineering and Maths ( STEM ) subjects at school and on to higher
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