Foreword

The conference "Nuclear Energy for New Europe" is a traditional annual meeting of professionals from nuclear research and educational institutions, nuclear utilities and regulatory bodies from Europe and abroad. The 31^st conference in the series was held in Portorož, from 12 to 15 September 2022. The conference was attended by 219 participants from 18 countries and international organizations.

The activities that led to these Proceedings started in January 2022 with a Call for papers and 132 abstracts were submitted by May 2022. A program committee meeting was held in June in Ljubljana where the conference program was outlined. Contributed papers presented a variety of new scientific, technical and operational results. The proceedings contain 103 peer-reviewed papers and some photographs from the venue.

Highlights of the conference were:

• 3 invited lectures and
• 132 papers were presented: 42 papers presented orally and 90 papers presented as posters.

We kept also the conference tradition and organized the young authors contest. We would like to thank 23 young authors from 9 countries who participated in the contest. Special thanks go to the young author award committee members who diligently worked through the excellent papers.

Young author awards were given to:

• Domen Kotnik for the paper  “Analysis of water activation loop at the JSI TRIGA research reactor”, co-authored by Anil Kumar Basavaraj, Igor Lengar

and

• Silvia Lo Muzio for the paper “Implementation and validation of the steady state SP3 approximation in the GRS FENNECS code”, co-authored by Armin Seubert

Following the tradition of previous meetings, we have also organized the best poster award. We also thank the best poster award committee members who evaluated the posters according to the clearness of objectives, results and conclusions, aesthetics and attractiveness, and scientific relevance.

Best poster awards were given to posters entitled:

• “Analysis of the void coefficient in Pavia TRIGA Mark-II reactor: Monte Carlo numerical evaluation and comparison with experimental data” by Riccardo Boccelli, Antonio Cammi, Carolina Introini, Stefano Lorenzi

and

• “Common misconceptions about nuclear energy - case study from interactions in visitors center” by Jure Jazbinšek, Garsia Kosinac, Melita Lenošek Kavčič, Tomaž Žagar

Finally, we would also like to recognize the support of the Nuclear Society of Slovenia and the Nuclear Training Centre (ICJT) of the Jožef Stefan Institute as the co-organizers and the support of our sponsors.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank the members of the program committee, who solicited papers and elaborated on the conference program. Members of the award committees diligently worked through the young authors’ papers, or poster presentations, and selected the best. The support of the sponsors is also greatly appreciated. The Organizing Committee, chaired by Ms. Mateja Južnik, gave us outstanding logistical and administrative support. Ms. Saša Bobič and Ms. Vesna Slapar Borišek were in particular helpful in the editorial work of these Proceedings.

We are looking forward to meet you all again at the International Conference Nuclear Energy for New Europe 2023, Portorož, Slovenia, September 11 to 14, 2023.

Igor Jenčič
Chair, Program Committee