The Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology (IRSE) is located in Kurchatov city and is a branch of the Republican State Enterprise “National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan (RSE NNC RK). The total area of the Institute is about 21 hectares. The Institute is currently located in the territory of the former sector of military unit 52605 and deployed in five laboratory and four administrative buildings.
The main scientific line of the Institute’s activity is comprehensive research into the former Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS), development and implementation of measures for securing the radioecological situation in the STS and adjacent territories.
Strategic areas of the Institute’s activity are:
ensuring safe conditions of venues of nuclear tests conducted in RK, drastic solution to problems of the former Semipalatinsk Test Site and other places of nuclear testing;
establishing and providing a scientific and technical support for the personnel and RK population doses state system of accounting and inspection in order to ensure a sustainable reduction in doses for the country’s population;
establishing and developing the state monitoring system of radiation-hazardous RK sites for the purpose of providing state authorities and the population with up-to-date information on the state of radiation-hazardous site of RK;
implementing measures for securing radiation-hazardous sites in rk.
the personnel strength of the Institute is 290 staff members, of them – 12 Candidates of Sciences (PhD), 38 graduate students, 198 research specialists, of who 161 employees with university degrees.
The Institute actively cooperates both with republican and international organizations: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Science and Technology Center (ISTC), NATO, research laboratories in the USA and Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and others.