IAEA GSR Part 3 — Radiation Protection and Safety of Radiation Sources: International Basic Safety Standards (2014)

Table of Contents

1. Source documents

  • Official PDF retained locally — IAEA and joint sponsoring organisations, 2014; retrieved 16 September 2026.
  • Extracted text
  • Provenance and SHA-256 metadata

2. Authority and jurisdiction

  • IAEA General Safety Requirements jointly sponsored by relevant international organisations.
  • Establishes requirements for states and organisations within its international standards framework; it is not directly binding Queensland legislation.
  • Influences Australian codes including RPS C-1 and RPS C-5. Local legal force requires national or jurisdictional implementation.

3. Key takeaways

  • GSR means General Safety Requirements: GSR Part 3 sets international requirements for radiation protection and source safety across planned, emergency and existing exposure situations, with governmental, regulatory and responsible-person duties.
  • Planned exposure requirements distinguish occupational, public and medical exposure and apply the protection principles differently to each.
  • Patient medical exposure is controlled by justification and optimisation, with defined professional responsibilities, calibration, dosimetry, QA and investigation—not by applying occupational/public dose limits to the prescribed treatment.
  • Requires a graded approach, management for protection and safety, competence, safety assessment, prevention and mitigation, and records.
  • Provides the international requirements layer underneath ARPANSA codes and IAEA SSG-46, not a direct approval or licence for THHS.

4. Summary

4.1. 1 — Introduction

  • Defines background, objective, scope, structure and the relationship to the IAEA safety principles.

4.2. 2 — General requirements for protection and safety

  • Sets responsibilities of government, regulatory bodies and principal parties.
  • Requires justification, optimisation, dose limitation where applicable, graded control, management systems, safety assessment, prevention and emergency preparedness.

4.3. 3 — Planned exposure situations

  • Requirement 9 and paras 3.13–3.15 assign primary protection and safety responsibility to registrants and licensees, including organisational measures and documented delegation. This is an international role framework, not a Queensland possession licence.

4.3.1. Government and regulatory framework

  • Requires authorisation, review, inspection, enforcement and supporting infrastructure proportionate to radiation risk.

4.3.2. Occupational exposure

  • Covers area classification, engineered and administrative controls, local rules, worker monitoring, dose assessment, health surveillance and records.
  • Requirement 24 places local rules and workplace monitoring within a radiation protection programme. Paragraph 3.94(e) calls for an RPO where appropriate under regulatory criteria; para 3.96 places workplace monitoring under an RPO or qualified expert.
  • Paragraph 3.110 requires worker instruction, training, periodic retraining and records. The RPO role is not the Queensland statutory RSO certificate.

4.3.3. Public and environmental exposure

  • Covers source-related public exposure, discharges, monitoring, assessment and environmental protection.

4.3.4. Medical exposure

  • Allocates responsibilities among the radiological medical practitioner, medical radiation technologist and medical physicist.
  • Requires justification, optimisation, appropriate equipment, calibration, patient dosimetry, QA, special consideration of pregnancy and breast-feeding, and investigation of unintended or accidental medical exposure.
  • Biomedical research exposure requires ethics approval (paras 3.152 and 3.161); significant unintended or accidental exposure is reported under para 3.181, subject to national implementation.

4.4. 4 — Emergency exposure situations

  • Establishes preparedness, response, worker and public protection, reference levels, transition and review requirements.

4.5. 5 — Existing exposure situations

  • Addresses identified existing exposures, remediation and radon or other source-specific control using reference levels and optimisation.

4.6. Schedules

Schedule I
Exemption and clearance.
Schedule II
Categorisation of sealed sources.
Schedule III
Dose limits for planned exposure situations.
Schedule IV
Criteria for emergency preparedness and response.

5. Important definitions, roles, limits and records

Requirement
A statement necessary to meet the IAEA safety standards framework; domestic enforceability still depends on implementation.
Dose constraint and reference level
Prospective optimisation tools; neither is simply interchangeable with a dose limit.
Medical physicist
Health professional with specialist education and training in the concepts and techniques of applying physics in medicine, competent to practise independently in relevant subfields.
Limits
Schedule III addresses worker and public exposure; patient medical exposure is excluded from dose limitation and instead controlled by justification and optimisation.
Records
Authorisations, occupational dose, calibration, dosimetry, QA, patient exposure, incidents and emergency arrangements as applicable.

6. Practical relationship to the THHS RSPP

  • International requirements source for the RSPP's differentiated treatment of patient, worker and public exposure.
  • Supports role clarity, safety assessment, training, calibration/dosimetry, QA, pregnancy management and unintended-exposure investigation.
  • Use RPS C-1/C-5 and Queensland instruments to state the Australian and binding local implementation.

7. See Also