Message from Prof. Onda
Nearly ten years have passed since the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, and radiation dose rates from radioactive materials have gradually decreased and residents have begun to return home.
Environmental contamination by radioactive materials has been repeated as a major event with intervals of about 10 years, beginning with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, followed by the Bikini Incident in 1954, the large-scale atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1960s, the Chinese nuclear tests in the mid-1960s, the Three Mile Accident in 1979, the Chernobyl accident in 1986, the Tokai accident and JCO accident in the late 1990s, and the Fukushima accident in 2011. In recent years, with the decision to operate a reprocessing plant in Rokkesho-mura, Aomori Prefecture, the importance of research on the environmental fate of radioactive materials has increased.
We, ERAN (Environmental Radioactivity Research Network Center), which was accredited by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and started its activities on April 1, 2019, is a network center of the Center for Research in Isotopes and Environmental Dynamics (CRiED) (※CRiES:Center for Research in Radiation, Isotopes, and Earth System Sciences, since 2023) at the University of Tsukuba, the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity (IER) at Fukushima University, and the Institute of Radiation Emergency Medicine (IREM) at Hirosaki University. In addition, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA Fukushima), National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES Fukushima), and Institute of Environmental Sciences (IES, joining since 2022) are positioned as the network centers for collaboration. The objective is to elucidate the mechanisms of diffusion, transport, deposition, and transfer of radioactive materials on land, in the sea, and in ecosystems, and to contribute to the prediction of long-term contamination and the reduction of radiation doses through the elucidation of their effects on radiation doses and transfer modeling.
Another of our major missions is to train young researchers. We also promote overseas joint research and provide internship programs at overseas sites by accepting visiting researchers and joint research projects from Japan and overseas. We are also actively engaged in fostering highly skilled young human resources to support nuclear emergency response and radioactive waste treatment and disposal.
By promoting cross-disciplinary joint research that combines geo-environmental science with radiochemistry, radiation effects, and nuclear science, the center will continue to promote the “isotope environmental dynamics research field” that uses radioactive materials as tracers in the material cycle, as a new academic field created by the fusion of different disciplines, and will become an international frontrunner in Japan and abroad. The center will promote the formation of an international center of excellence as a frontrunner in Japan and abroad in the newly created field of “Isotope Environmental Dynamics Research,” which uses radioactive materials as tracers of material cycles.
※CRiED was reorganized to CRiES in April 2023.
Application and Inquiries
Center for Research in Isotopes and Environmental Dynamics (CRiED ) , University of Tsukuba
Address: 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Japan 305-8577
e-mail: eran at ied.tsukuba.ac.jp (replace “at” with “@”)
Phone: 029-853-2532
fax: 029-853-2539