On September 03, 2013, the Chornobyl Center was visited by Mr. Taki, reporter of the Japanese newspaper ‘Nikkei Shimbun’.

During his visit, the Japanese journalist was briefed on the Chornobyl Center’s activities, its technical and research capabilities; he also interviewed Mr. Serhii Gashchak, IRL Deputy Director for Science, Cand. Sc. (Biology)

Mr. Taki was concerned about the issues of the Chernobyl exclusion zone radioecology, and particularly the ways of radionuclide migration outside the contaminated areas, mechanisms to prevent radioactivity carry-over, radiation effects in living organisms, as well as about application of the Chornobyl experience at Fukushima.

Our guest took particular interest in the information about collaboration of Japanese and Ukrainian scientists in radioecology, and especially in ‘COMET’ project, which started under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community on June 01, 2013*.

* The purpose of COMET combined collaboration project is to integrate the efforts of European research organizations for addressing the problems related to environmental (water and land ecosystems) effects of man-caused radioactive contamination, which resulted from accidents and/or engineering processes for extraction, processing, and use of radioactive materials, in particular:

• in the area of planning and operation of radiation safety systems;
• improvement of tools and methodologies for risk assessment;
• training and skills development of personnel;
• public affairs;
• collection and interpretation of previously published information to submit to the open English-language press;
• conduction of new researches on the migration of radionuclides in environmental systems and on the problems of radiation effects in biological objects (DNA, man, biota).

The project’s coordinator is the Belgian Nuclear Research Center, and the beneficiary is a consortium including 13 research and regulatory agencies representing 11 countries of the world. The State Scientific and Research Institution “Chornobyl Center” is one of the two Ukrainian beneficiaries of the project, and the National University Corporation Fukushima University is representing Japan.

The project duration shall be 48 months.