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SCK-CEN

Institute:	SCK-CEN
Address:	Boeretang 200 2400 Mol Belgium
Website:	http://www.sckcen.be/
Contact person	Berghmans Francis
Presentation:	SCK.pdf (466.61 kB)

Description

The Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN) is a Foundation of Public Utility (FBU), with a legal status according to private law, under the tutorial of the Belgian Federal Minister in charge of energy. SCK•CEN has about 600 employees, of which one third has an academic degree. The turn-over amounts to 80 M€ per year: 50 % directly from a government grant, 10 % indirectly via activities for the dismantling of declassified installations and 40 % of the funding from contract work and services. SCK•CEN was created in 1952 in order to give the Belgian academic and industrial world access to the worldwide development of nuclear energy. Since 1991, the statutory mission gives the priority to research on problems of societal concern.
SCK•CEN is involved in NEMO through two of its departments: the Instrumentation Department with a staff of 12 people among which 6 researchers and the Knowledge Management and Knowledge Centre.
The Instrumentation Department is internationally recognized for its applied research on the reliability of photonic devices for communication and sensing, in particular for nuclear applications and in the framework of the EFDA European Fusion Development Agreement. SCK•CEN has more than 10 year expertise in dealing with reliability aspects of semiconductor optical source and detectors, optical sensors and fibre-optic glass materials. This expertise and it’s involvement in the COST270 action on “Reliability of Optical Components and Devices in Communications Systems and Networks” makes SCK•CEN ideally suited to take up the leadership of NEMO’s service and technology providing "Centre for Reliability". SCK•CEN also makes its extensively equipped lab for environmental testing and optical/electrical characterization of photonic components available to NEMO’s "Centre for Measurement and Instrumentation". In addition, the expertise in optical sensors and the research that SCK•CEN’s Instrumentation Department has initiated in close collaboration with VUB on “Fibre Bragg gratings in micro-structured optical fibres” will be transferred to NEMO’s workpackage on "Micro-optical Structures for Sensing".
As Knowledge Management (KM) is essential in a knowledge based society and as knowledge is the primary asset of a scientific research centre, SCK•CEN decided in 2001 to tackle this strategic concern. The existing library has been placed within the larger framework of Information & Knowledge Management. In 2002 the “Knowledge Management - Knowledge Centre” (KM&KC) department was created. During 2002 KM&KC has started to develop its own KM methodology by defining the KM strategy for SCK•CEN and by translating this strategy into pilot projects. In order to sustain interactive research communities, web-based portals have been set up using the same underlying toolkit and offering the same basic features for collaboration & communication. SCK•CEN will therefore transfer this expertise to those activities of NEMO that focus on "use and dissemination of knowledge" and will play a central role in NEMO’s "Knowledge Management Portal and Networking Centre".