This panel focused on the design and content of warning messages to the future, being developed by various repository programs around the world.  Since early thinking developed during the conceptual design of the US Waste Isolation Pilot Plant permanent markers and passive institutional controls, great strides have been made in material longevity, informatics, social communication theory, and other key disciplines needed to ensure a warning message to future generations gets through.  This panel described and debated differences and similarities of messages being contemplated internationally.  Special focus centered on progress made through the NEA RK&M project, and common ideas that may evolve into an international standard.

Panelists included: Steve Wagner, John Hart & Associates; Abe Van Luik, US DOE (USA); John A. Day, Head of Knowledge Management and Intellectual Property, Sellafield (United Kingdom); Simon Wisbey, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (United Kingdom); Jantine Schroder, OECD NEA (Belgium); and Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor of Harvard University (USA).