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In this session panelists will describe their radiation archiving practices, their perspectives on radiation knowledge databases and infrastructures needed for the future, and ideas for ways these infrastructures can be built and sustained to support radiation education and governance.

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Japan’s ongoing experiences with radiation from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Fukushima provide powerful examples of the importance of radiation governance. The tenth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear reactor failure calls for reflection on past and future radiation governance, recognized as a transnational, transdisciplinary, and transgenerational challenge and responsibility.

The Envisioning Next Generation Radiation Governance Symposium held Mondays in March, 2021 will include an introductory lecture and four panel discussions exploring the archiving, regulation and education needed to support radiation governance in the future, in a wide array of places. One goal is to bring together people involved in different aspects of radiation governance, connecting efforts related to uranium mining and processing, weapons testing, nuclear power generation, food safety, radiation medicine, and so on. Another goal is to foreground diverse approaches to radiation governance stemming from diverse histories, foregrounding initiatives in Japan and the United States. Each panel will be a moderated discussion among differently situated experts, with time for questions from the audience. 

This symposium extends from and supports the on-going work of the Radiation Governance Working Group in the Disaster STS Network. The Radiation Governance Working Group is building a transnational community-of-practice, body of research, and teaching materials focused on radiation governance. The group investigates how those with different kinds of expertise about radiation (nuclear scientists and engineers, policy makers, affected community members, regulators, facility administrators, clinicians, social science researchers, educators, et al.) can construct among themselves ways of sharing their knowledge and working together to build effective governance. 

This symposium is organized by Dr. Thomas De Pree, University of New Mexico, USA,  Professor Kim Fortun, University of California, Irvine, USA, Ina Kim, University of California, Irvine, USA, Tim Schütz, University of California, Irvine, USA,  Professor Hirotaka Sugawara, Director General Emeritus, KEK, Tsukuba, Japan,  Dr. Nadine Tanio, University of California, Irvine, USA and Professor Sharon Traweek, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.

The Radiation Governance Symposium acknowledges the Acjachemen and Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, including the region from the Santa Ana River to Aliso Creek and beyond). Symposium organizers acknowledge colonization as an ongoing process, the need to continue repairing the harm caused to Native peoples around the world, and a special need to better govern radiation hazards in Native communities.