Letter to IUR members

Dear Colleagues,

Time is ripe now to revitalize our Union’s scientific activities after the deleterious impact of the pandemic which impacted us all. We therefore started by holding a scientific symposium which took place in Dublin in early September entitled “Beyond ecosystem approaches in radioecology”, to take stock of the current situation and identify the new directions of development that IUR will engage now.

This future strategy will be endorsed and carried out by a new Board of Council to be elected. Candidates to form this future Board have already been called for within the radioecology community and identified. All participated to this Symposium, either in presence or virtually, as they will have the task to lead the new strategy. We therefore decided some time ago to integrate them within the current Board as “special officers” for a transition phase to last until the election process will have settled the new Board.

Before starting the election process, this letter is to recall you all that access to voting is restricted to IUR members having paid their current annual fee (50 € regular, 25 € students), as usual. This can easily be done directly on the IUR web site using your credit card (https://www.iur-uir.org/en/join-the-union). Also, we would like to attract as many new members as possible and ask you to encourage your colleagues and network of scientists to join our worldwide Union. Radioecology expertise designed to master risks from radiation appears more necessary than ever since nuclear industry is boosted as an appropriate carbon free source of energy reducing impact on climate change.

We recall below what added value scientists get from adhering to IUR and becoming an IUR member:

• Be part of the widest radioecology network of scientists acting worldwide and gaining a facilitated access to their activities and reflections
• Accessing various tools on the IUR web site (www.iur-uir.org) restricted to members (internal ongoing projects, Task Group activities, ongoing common publications, a network of fellow scientists and industrial researchers active in the field, exchange platform to share data, etc…) and advertise the various research groups latest achievements
• Accessing a personal registration to the electronic version of Journal of Environmental Radioactivity (JER) at a much reduced rate (30 € per year), which has been negotiated with Elsevier through an earlier Memorandum of Understanding
• Obtaining a substantial rebate on the registration fee to all international conferences which are organized, or co-organized, by IUR (ICRER series, notably, ICRER 2024 - Marseille France, etc…)
• Accessing potential leadership and visibility of scientific Task Group activities
• To compete for obtaining various grants from IUR (for specific scientific activities, for travel and accommodation to access international conferences,…)
• Be eligible for IUR Awards: the Vernadsky award and medal granted to senior scientists, the Young Investigator Award for young scientists

Please, make sure to pay your annual fee to be entitled to vote for establishing the next Board of Council. Call your friends to adhere to our Union and take part in its activities. We foresee to hold the elections electronically by the end of January, next year. So, everyone still has a couple of months to clear its situation.

We thank you very much in advance for your continuous support.

Gratefully yours,

On behalf of the Board of Council
François Bréchignac
IUR General Secretary