A well-developed and inclusive radiation protection culture implies the proactive engagement of the general public. Moreover, the radiation protection profession must surely be ethically obliged to engage the public on a range of issues. At the time of writing, culture and ethics are both ‘hot’ topics within the international radiation protection community.

The web-based tool SurveyMonkey® was identified as potentially providing an easy and inexpensive way for effectively and efficiently engaging with the general public on a variety of radiation protection topics. To test this hypothesis, a simple survey was devised to focus on a topic perceived by the authors to be within the public interest, that being the public’s opinion of nuclear power.

It was envisaged that data garnered from such surveys could be fed back to the public in appealing formats via the Society for Radiological Protection (SRP) website and indeed other International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA) Associated Society websites thereby completing the engagement cycle. This could act as a useful research methodology by promoting knowledge and opinion exchange not only between the radiation protection profession and the public but also between professional societies.

It is acknowledged that opinion surveys or polls are only one component of public engagement. Nevertheless, this work aspires to highlight the importance of public engagement to other professional radiation protection societies around the world and encourage them to consider using SurveyMonkey®, or similar on-line tools, to involve the general public on radiation protection subjects.

Click here to download the results poster.