Interview with Francis Roy (SureDyna) in CentraleSupelec Alumni magazine #31, November-December 2025 (translated from French)
What are SureDyna’s primary missions in the field of nuclear safety, and how do these missions fit into French and international regulatory requirements?
SureDyna is a consulting and engineering company that helps all players in the nuclear industry improve safety through expertise, strategic advice, R&D and engineering studies, and training.
The nuclear safety regulators in each country define the requirements. SureDyna helps nuclear operators, their designers and service providers to respond effectively to the demands of the safety regulator in the country where they are based and to obtain licensing for their operations.
How does your engineering approach contribute in practice to building and maintaining confidence in nuclear facilities, both among safety regulators and technical and non-technical audiences?
Nuclear safety is based on a specific approach known as Defence in Depth.
To prevent, protect against and limit the consequences of anomalies, incidents and accidents, Defence in Depth consists of superimposing several levels of independent, hierarchical measures so that, in case of an undesirable event, the failure of the measures at one level is compensated for by the measures at the next level, which take over.
This method forms the basis of the nuclear safety approach and applies to all stages of safety analysis, design, construction, operation, shutdown and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Defence in Depth makes it possible to define safety requirements according to categories of normal, incidental or accidental situations.
The confidence of safety regulators and technical audiences is based above all on the appropriate implementation of defence in depth at all levels, from design to quality of construction, then on international best practices, and finally on internal control by the operator and external control by the safety regulator in accordance with the regulations in force.
Safety regulators and nuclear operators must therefore inform the non-technical public and build their confidence.
In concrete terms, SureDyna’s approach consists of implementing and/or verifying the correct application and consistency of the nuclear safety approach and all measures taken, from studies and reference documents to the field.
In a context of rapid technological change, what are the main opportunities and risks you identify for nuclear safety, and how does SureDyna address them on a daily basis?
Nuclear safety is based on proven methods and practices, as well as feedback from incidents and accidents and best practices at nuclear facilities.
A new technique must first be incorporated into existing practices and undergo a validation process within the facility or with the nuclear operator, or even with the safety regulator.
Through its extensive use of the safety approach, SureDyna provides nuclear industry players with the additional support they need to validate these developments as they occur.
Transparency of methods and results is often seen as a key factor in legitimacy for stakeholders. How does SureDyna organise independent verification, traceability and data robustness in its safety engineering processes?
The transparency of methods and results is guaranteed by the validated implementation of the nuclear safety approach: if the safety approach has been properly applied at all levels, the process is valid.
To guarantee this validity, SureDyna may organise independent verification, traceability and robustness of the data to verify the overall approach implemented by its clients, or even carry out the required checks itself, particularly on the documents produced.
How does SureDyna ensure competence, safety culture and ethics in the projects in which it is involved, so that the proposed engineering meets nuclear safety requirements?
SureDyna ensures stakeholder competence through tailored training courses and validates practical knowledge acquisition through exercises.
Safety culture and ethics are ensured by the management of the companies and organisations concerned, which must ensure that all personnel involved receive appropriate training: SureDyna raises management awareness of these requirements as part of its consulting services.
What do you see as the major challenges ahead for the company in terms of nuclear safety, and how do you plan to anticipate them to continue to guarantee reliable engineering?
The ageing of facilities and external threats are already anticipated as part of the general approach to nuclear safety.
Changes in regulatory contexts are sometimes subject to political uncertainties but are most often anticipated through dialogue between operators and nuclear safety regulators. In this regard, international organisations (International Atomic Energy Agency — IAEA) and the sharing of international best practices in nuclear safety play an important role.
A major challenge concerns new technologies, particularly SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) and AMRs (Advanced Modular Reactors), which are very different from power reactors such as the EPR.
SMR and AMR designs are generally simpler than those of power reactors, and their safety relies more on passive systems and intrinsic safety features (low power and pressure). This means they can have lighter containment devices and emergency response measures.
However, the specific modular approach of SMRs and AMRs requires safety regulators and nuclear operators to adapt their safety approaches and licensing procedures.
More generally, the biggest challenge in nuclear safety is to keep things simple: to focus on the essentials so as not to complicate or compromise safety.
These challenges affect all those involved in nuclear safety, and SureDyna helps them to meet these challenges.
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