The research project "Personal Online DosImetry Using computational Methods (PODIUM)" is funded by the European Commission and focuses on individual monitoring of exposed workers to external ionizing radiation.

The main objective of PODIUM project is to improve occupational dosimetry by an innovative approach: the development of an online dosimetry application based on computer simulations, which will calculate individually the occupational doses, without the use of physical dosemeters. The operational quantities, protection quantities and radiosensitive organ doses (e.g. eye lens, brain, extremities, etc.) will be assessed based on the use of modern technology such as personal tracking systems, flexible individualized phantoms and scanning of geometry set-up. When combined with fast simulation codes, the aim is to perform personal dosimetry in real-time.

New technologies are moving towards active personal dosemeters and active systems that can transfer the dose data to online applications such as smartphones, servers, etc.

The availability of the proposed by the project online application will help to overcome problems arising from the use of passive and electronic dosemeters. Such problems include the uncertainty in the evaluation of neutron and photon doses when a part of the body is shielded, the delay in the calculation of doses and the situations, where the workers place their dosemeters incorrectly.

In addition, the proposed approach will raise the awareness of radiation protection workers and will be used for ALARA principle optimization in routine practice.

The PODIUM project consists of 7 Work Packages (WPs) and EEAE participates in 3 of them. More specifically, in WP0 (Management), WP4 (Assessment and validation of the online dosimetry application in hospitals) and WP6 (Dissemination of the project results).

The project is funded by the "CONCERT-European Joint Programme for the Integration of Radiation Protection Research" and will last 24 months (2018-2020). The total budget is 1.399.930 euros. A total of 7 European organizations are part of the program under the coordination of the Belgian Research Center SCK-CEN.