On May 29, Mr. William D. Magwood, IV, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency Director General, together with a delegation visited Świerk. The meeting at the NCBJ was chaired by Mr. Andrzej Piotrowski, an adviser to the Minister of Energy. Professor Andrzej Chmielewski, Director of the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (IChTJ) and the meeting hosts - NCBJ management including the director, professor Krzysztof Kurek also attended the meeting.

The main focus of the presentations and talks were prospects for utilizing nuclear energy in Poland, but the international context was also important. Professor Grzegorz Wrochna, the NCBJ director’s plenipotentiary, presented on the work done on usability of high-temperature nuclear reactors (HTR) for economy needs, especially in chemical industry. Director Magwood accepted with great interest the presented information. During plenary and backstage discussions, he emphasized the international importance of developing HTR technology. The project raises high hopes. Key business entities are interested in the research and new technologies. This fall in Warsaw, several hundred delegates from the entire world will attend a large international HTR conference organized by prof. Wrochna. In his lecture, prof. Chmielewski drew attention to the importance of IChTJ cooperation with European projects and with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He reminded that among 167 IAEA member states, only one fifth have energy reactors, while almost all of them use nuclear technologies in medicine and industry.

The culmination of the meeting was a visit in the research reactor Maria and in the Radioisotope Center POLATOM operating in NCBJ.

Mr. William D. Magwood, IV is the head of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2014. Previously, he worked as an adviser to the U.S. President, U.S. Senate, NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and as Director of Nuclear Energy within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Mr. Magwood was accompanied in Świerk by Ms. Daniel Lulache (Head of policy and coordination at the NEA) and Ms. Giovanna Piccarreta (NEA's International adviser at the NEA).