Institut de recherche sur les lois fondamentales de l'Univers

There is a wide application of nuclear data by industry, safety authorities, medicine and other fields (e.g. nuclear astrophysics), which has led to a worldwide effort to generate consistent nuclear data libraries. Although the generation of these libraries is driven by applications, their adaption to satisfy the demands of novel technologies is frequently associated with basic research needs both in experiment as well as in theory. At present the current questions are related to increased accuracy, the extension of the isotope and energy range of the libraries as well as the inclusion of the proper uncertainty information. In this talk I will consider a selection of basic nuclear physics problems in neutron-nucleus collisions, which are or have to be addressed by the nuclear data community. These questions belong to the fields of nuclear structure and/or nuclear reaction physics and are often discussed in slightly different context in these fields. The reliability and consistency demands on nuclear data represent additional challenges to data analysis and treatment and lead to new questions of basic interest.