The Institute for Radioelements (IRE) and its subsidiary IRE ELiT (www.ire.eu) in co-operation with several national and international institutions is organizing the 6^th INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON IN SITU NUCLEAR METROLOGY AS A TOOL FOR RADIOECOLOGY (INSINUME 2012).

For its 10^th anniversary, the conference will be organized in Brussels (Belgium), after having been held in Dubna (Russia, 2010), Rabbat (Morocco, 2008), Kusadasi (Turkey, 2006), Albena (Bulgaria, 2004) and Fleurus (Belgium, 2002).

Objectives

Nuclear metrology is an essential tool to study and understand the behaviour and the fate of radionuclides in the ecosystems, especially with regards (i) to the sustainable management of natural resources (mining, agriculture, water), (ii) to the “zero-release” policy with respect to the potential sources of radioactive contamination from the nuclear and non-nuclear sector and (iii) to the impact of nuclear incidents and accidents.

This symposium mainly dedicated to the new technologies and methodologies applied to measurements of radionuclides for radioecological purposes has a dual objective.

First of all, it aims at bringing together students, scientists, nuclear regulatory bodies, international organizations and industrials to enable a wide exchange of information regarding practical experience and difficulties encountered in daily radiological monitoring of environment.

New technologies are now at the disposal of stakeholders for measuring radionuclides, investigating radioactive contaminants dispersion and assessing their impact both in normal and accidental conditions. Therefore, the symposium also intends to focus on the modern tools and technologies, which could be used nowadays to measure radionuclides in the laboratory and in situ, to ease the continuous remote surveillance of the radiological status of ecosystems, to study the transfer of radionuclides and to assess the induced dose exposure.

On basis of acquired experience and metrology progress, the final object of the symposium is to help the environmental radiation protection community to perform realistic and useful radiological monitoring.