On 17th November 2011, during a press conference jointly organised by IRSN and ASN (the French nuclear safety authority), IRSN presented its review of the Post-Fukushima Complementary Safety Assessments reports submitted by operators to ASN. A summary of this report in now available in English.

Strengthening internal cohesion, further enhancing the synergy between research and expertise, managing effectively a large capital of scientific and technical knowledge and the training of future experts, consolidating the Institute's ability to cope with a possible nuclear crisis: these are for the Director General of IRSN, Jacques Repussard, the main objectives assigned to the new organization, developed in close consultation with the staff of the Institute.

A joint scientific publication in the “International Journal of Cancer” dated January 4, 2012 by epidemiologists from Inserm (the French health research institute) and IRSN, points to an excess of risk of childhood leukaemia around French nuclear power plants. IRSN points below its position on this issue.

The Viktoria Loop was inaugurated on December 14th, 2011 in Levice (Slovakia) by His Excellency Mr. Jean-Marie Bruno, French ambassador to Slovakia, Milos Zachar, director of Vuez, and Jacques Repussard, director general of IRSN. Nearly one hundred representatives of 25 nuclear safety organizations from 11 countries participated in the event.

In an information notice published in French on November 15 2011, IRSN reported that it had detected traces of iodine-131 in the form of airborne particles. The traces were detected in a number of samples taken by aerosol monitoring stations in the IRSN OPERA-Air network. The results of sampling measurements taken over the first ten days of November were around a few microbecquerels per cubic meter of air (µBq/m3). These values are close to the detection limits of the most effective measuring methods. Although iodine-131 is not normally found in the air throughout the country, its presence did not give any cause for concern for the population's health or the environment.

The 13th edition of the Eurosafe Forum, organized by the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) with support from its German counterparts (Gessellschatf-für Anlagen-und Reaktorsicherheit - GRS) and Belgium (BEL V), took place at the Cité Internationale in Paris the 7 and 8 November 2011.