How to envisage the future of radioactive waste? What if we tried to think about it by playing?
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ast April 24, more than 80 students, future political scientists and future engineers, a dozen colleagues from the School of Engineering and the Faculty of Law, Political Science and Criminology, and several representatives from the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control and Bel V met to experience a "serious game" session. Already tested at the European level and in France, the use of this board game was a great first in Belgium with the students of ULiège!
The rules of the game were simple and finally incredibly realistic. On the starting line, a series of very toxic objects already present on the Belgian territory. The objective: to manage and control them for thousands, even millions of years, with only one rule from which no player can deviate, to ensure the safety of man and the environment. In between, the players are faced with unforeseen, disruptive events, unplanned changes: how to assess the situation? What to do? How to react to an "unexpected financial shortage", "new technical challenges", "operational error", "institutional upheaval" or "loss of political interest"? What are the consequences of these unforeseen events on the implementation of a management option?
"Do you need prior knowledge to play? " one student quietly asks. The answer from a co-organizer came from the topicality of the health crisis: "You are the future political experts or engineers who will advise the political decision-makers tomorrow. Scientific and technical knowledge will not always be available and when it is, it will probably not answer your questions perfectly. However, you will have to support the decision-making process and be able to react in all circumstances. Let's play for knowledge! ".
Created by the SITEX initiative, which includes European nuclear regulators, the Pathway Evolution Process (PEP)[1] serious game has no winners or losers. The aim of the game is to raise awareness of the uncertainties inherent in the various socio-technical projects designed to manage this toxic waste, to project oneself into possible futures and to reflect on the answers to be given collectively to these challenges for future generations.
On April 24, students, professors and representatives of the administration participated in an open-air experiment by testing a new method. The discussions were intense but respectful, and there were more questions than answers. One certainty emerged at the end of the day: the serious game made it easy for the disciplines of political science and engineering science, which were previously far apart, to meet. Given the magnitude of the challenges in nuclear safety, this is an undeniable asset for managing uncertainties in an interdisciplinary manner. At the time of the public inquiry on the future of Belgian nuclear reactors, the PEP serious game is really to be experimented again and again, with other committed players, urgently!
