In brief
The IAEA’s 15th Symposium on International Safeguards opened in Vienna with about 1,000 attendees from over 100 countries, stressing innovation, resilience, and shared responsibility in a changing geopolitical environment. Deputy Director General Massimo Aparo emphasized progress since 2022, including industry collaboration, the first complete cycle of the COMPASS capacity‑building program, and new field‑inspection equipment. The symposium showcased extensive field verification statistics from 2025, underscoring the agency’s ongoing efforts to strengthen safeguards worldwide.
On Monday, November 10 2026, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) opened its 15th Symposium on International Safeguards in Vienna, drawing around 1,000 participants from more than 100 countries and 20 international organizations, according to a news release from Xinhua.
The opening session emphasized the agency’s focus on innovation, resilience, and shared responsibility amid rapid technology change and evolving geopolitical dynamics. Massimo Aparo, IAEA deputy director general and head of the Department of Safeguards, urged “all parties, including policymakers, industry, civil society and the safeguards workforce, to keep the safeguards system resilient,” he said.
Our operating environment is undergoing significant changes that are testing our resilience and challenging us to be more innovative.
Mr. Aparo highlighted several milestones: closer collaboration with industry and regulators to design nuclear technologies with safeguards built in; the completion of the first regular cycle of the comprehensive capacity‑building initiative COMPASS; and the continued development of equipment used by inspectors in the field.
A video presentation at the opening detailed the IAEA’s 2025 field activities, showing nearly 3,000 in‑field verifications across 191 states, nearly 1,000 samples collected, about 1,400 surveillance cameras maintained, over 2,800 commercial satellite images acquired, and more than 24,000 seals verified.
The symposium, held every four years, will serve as a platform for participants to discuss and advance safeguards measures in a rapidly changing world.
