Executive Director Larry MacFaul, and Verification and Monitoring Co-Programme Directors Alberto Muti and Grant Christopher participated in the 2022 IAEA Safeguards Symposium last week. VERTIC presented across five panels, from futures scenarios work to research on the impact of emerging and disruptive technology. The theme of the symposium was ‘Reflecting on the Past, Anticipating the Future’. As such, VERTIC was one of many institutes to participate in work on developing futures scenarios or ‘drivers’ – the themes, concepts and technologies that will drive the future safeguards operating environment. The result of that work were three scenarios: ‘The Great Game’, ‘Greenolution’, and ‘Info Storm’ with card decks of the drivers and three experiential rooms, with displays, sounds and descriptions for in-person participants at the Symposium. Dr Grant Christopher spoke on the Greenolution panel and Mr Alberto Muti spoke on the ‘Great Game’ panel and a reflections panel as part of this work.
Dr Grant Christopher presented research on the impact of the darknet on safeguards and participated in a panel on ‘Strengthening Confidence in the Absence of Undeclared Activities’ speaking on emerging technologies.
