Current activities of the international commission on radiological protection

The advice of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is aimed principally at the regulators and operators that have responsibility for establishing protection standards. ICRP's present recommendations were published in 1991. Since then, the Commission has published additional recommendations, and the system of protection has become increasingly complex. The Commission has decided to simplify its system and make it more coherent. In 2005, the Commission plans to adopt a new set of recommendations that should be seen as a consolidation of earlier recommendations. In the review of the current system of protection, many topics are being looked at and all committees are currently addressing issues of relevance for the revision. A proposal for the new recommendations on radiological protection will be discussed at the 11th International Radiation Protection Association conference in Madrid in 2004. When the Commission adopts the new recommendations in 2005, 15 y will have passed since the 1990 recommendations were adopted.