The Chairman of CEA, Mr Daniel Verwaerde, has indicated that CEA research reactors and ancillary facilities will be open to Jordanian scientists and engineers for Education and Training, Hands-On Training and R&D projects. This agreement, signed within the IAEA-ICERR (international Center based on Research Reactors) will allow researchers from JAEC to get access to research reactors capacity thus developing in an efficient way, their human resources.
The ICERR program will contribute to enhance the utilization of the JRTR (Jordanian Test and Research Reactor) and associated scientific equipment’s in Jordan, and will help to develop innovative nuclear technologies while encouraging the cooperation.
In 2015, the CEA was the first research organization worldwide to be designated ICERR by the IAEA. The main objective of the ICERR program is to help Member States of the IAEA to get quick access to state-of-the-art research reactors in order to perform nuclear R&D enhancing then their scientific capacity. CEA already signed several agreements in 2016 with the following Member States, Morocco, Tunisia and Slovenia and more recently with Indonesia (March 2017) and Algeria (April 2017).
The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission was established at the beginning of 2008 as successor to the Jordanian Nuclear Energy Commission. The development and promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear energy were transferred to the Commission. The work of the Atomic Energy Commission focuses on two main areas, namely, the construction of nuclear power plants for the production of electricity and desalination of water using those nuclear reactors, and also the project to use the natural nuclear resources found in Jordan, namely, the uranium.