According to a Nuclear.ru report, Thomas D'Agostino, NNSA Administrator, told journalists at a March 9 event in Washington, DC that the United States and Russia completed conversion feasibility studies for two out of six reactors. The feasibility studies were initiated in 2010 after a long period of consultations. The issue of reactor conversion was discussed at meetings of the U.S. National Academies and Russian Academy of Sciences held in November 2010 and June 2011.

According to D'Agostino, Russia is now considering which reactor should be converted first. No information about the chosen reactors is available, but it is likely that the two first reactors are IRT at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and IRT-T at the Tomsk Polytechnical Institute. Reactors of this type have been successfully converted elsewhere.