Based on the requirements of the development of the HPR1000 nuclear power plant, three major challenges faced by the full scope and full forward optimization design of radiation protection were analyzed, namely the formulation and effective implementation of the methodology for radiation protection optimization, the improvement on design quality and efficiency of radiation protection design, the fine control of the entire process of radiation protection design, and the good inheritance of knowledge. Three different solutions were proposed for the three major challenges, namely radiation protection optimization methodology, radiation protection design code platform, and radiation protection collaborative design platform. The organization and process control implemented are also described. The successful application at both the Fangchenggang Phase II project and UK HPR1000 project attested to the efficacy of proposed solutions in achieving radiation protection optimization design of HPR1000. Consequently, the established optimization design method for radiation protection through this research can be extended and applied in the radiation protection design of other types of nuclear power plant.