Latest News
Background, Motivation and Objective
In the past two years, Department of Nuclear Engineering and Management, University of Tokyo and Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley have been carrying out collaboration
for developing advanced educational programs for nuclear engineering. The collaboration, called GoNERI, has been funded by the Global Center of Excellence (G-COE) program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS).
As one of the core parts of GoNERI program, special emphasis is placed on integrating nuclear science and engineering with social science. Among many other areas in the nuclear field, we recognize the particular relevance of social-scientific approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle and radioactive waste disposal. It is imperative that the new generation of nuclear engineers understand societal aspects of nuclear technologies sufficiently to serve the public good. However, as faculty members and students in nuclear science and engineering, we do not yet have sufficient command of the fundamentals of the social sciences (such as their domain, concepts, terminology, methodology, etc.), which limits us in collaborating with social scientists. This must be corrected.
With such understanding, under the GoNERI program, efforts have been made to develop an innovative education program by integrating nuclear engineering and social sciences, including a series of bi-weekly seminars and field trips to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), New Mexico, Toyo-Cho and Rokkasho-Mura, Japan.
The objective of such prospective educational program is to provide students with an awareness of social science perspectives and the capability to put them to work in improving society's ability to make difficult and long-term decisions. We will do this by establishing a systematically integrated program for nuclear engineering graduate students. This summer school is planned and organized as an important milestone toward the goal.
nuc.berkeley.edu,
510-642-5760