Strategic Management of the Development of the Nuclear Industry in Newcomer Countries: The Competence Dilemma of the Client and the Contractor, Using the Republic of Serbia as an Example.

In the context of an accelerating global energy transition, tightening climate agenda, and states' pursuit of long-term energy security, nuclear energy is experiencing an unprecedented renaissance. States that previously abandoned nuclear generation or never possessed it are now compelled to reassess their energy doctrines. 

For countries that are creating or reviving the nuclear sector for the first time after a long pause (the so-called newcomer countries), the process of implementing a national nuclear energy program represents the most complex systemic, technological, and institutional challenge. Developing a sustainable nuclear infrastructure requires not only colossal financial investments, measured in billions of dollars, but also the creation of a multilevel system of competencies capable of ensuring nuclear and radiological safety for more than a century, covering stages from design to decommissioning.¹

In the process of initiating a nuclear program, government structures, national energy companies, and academic institutes inevitably face a fundamental dilemma in prioritizing staffing and institutional development. The essence of this dilemma boils down to answering three interconnected strategic questions. 

Firstly, what represents a greater threat to the successful and safe implementation of the program: the country's lag in its ability to formulate, specify, and strictly control the requirements for international technology vendors, or the lag of the national industry and scientific-technical base in its ability to independently meet these highest requirements? 

Secondly, who should become the true locomotive and driver of the industry's development: the “creators” — program architects, systems engineers, regulators and competent customers formulating requirements, or the “executors” — builders, operators, the local supply chain and production personnel, striving to meet these requirements? 

Thirdly, based on the life-cycle logic of a nuclear project, whom should the state be obliged to prepare first?

Answers to these questions form the core of the national strategy of technological sovereignty in the nuclear sphere. Historical experience and analysis of the regulatory directives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demonstrate that the intuitive desire of governments of many developing countries to immediately localize production and prepare the “builders” of nuclear power plants is a strategic mistake. 

As illustrated by the Republic of Serbia, which in 2024 lifted a thirty-five-year moratorium on the construction of nuclear power plants and began intensive development of a national program ⁴, the critical importance of forward-looking development of the purchaser's institutional competencies is clearly evident. 

The Serbian model, characterized by a strong academic heritage but a long stagnation in applied nuclear energy, perfectly illustrates the fundamental principle of the industry: technological independence and safety begin not with the ability to pour nuclear concrete or weld the pipes of the first circuit, but with the institutional capacity of the state to be independent, highly educated, and a discerning arbiter of the proposed global technologies.⁶

This report presents a deep analysis of this issue, examining the concept of the “Intelligent Customer” (Intelligent Customer), the evolution of contracting models, the impact of new technologies, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), and the workforce planning strategy, drawing on the current experience and roadmap of the Republic of Serbia.