TOPICS & SCOPE / ERaNS NEXTGEN

• Climate impacts on ecosystems and resources: water, soil, and biodiversity
• Air quality, aerosols, and atmospheric processes
• Soil science, land use, and degradation or restoration
• Aquatic systems: rivers, lakes, groundwater, and coastal zones
• Microplastics, emerging contaminants, and chemical pollution
• Environmental toxicology and ecological risk assessment

• Contaminant transport in air, water, and soil, including multiphase systems
• Biogeochemical cycles and tracer-based process studies
• Catchment and hydrological modeling; flood and drought risk
• Dispersion, deposition, and source–receptor relationships
• Uncertainty quantification, sensitivity, and scenario analysis
• Nature-based solutions and mitigation modeling

• Field campaigns, sampling design, QA/QC, and harmonization
• Sensor networks, IoT, and automated monitoring
• Remote sensing by satellite or UAV and geospatial analysis using GIS
• Data fusion: in situ observations, remote sensing, and models
• Environmental baselines and long-term observatories
• Citizen science and community monitoring

• Natural radionuclides, including radon and NORM, in the environment and buildings
• Anthropogenic radionuclides and legacy contamination
• Radionuclide behavior, mobility, and bioavailability
• Radioecology: uptake, food webs, and ecosystem effects
• Environmental dose assessment and exposure pathways
• Monitoring networks and intercomparison exercises

• Nuclear analytical methods, including activation analysis and gamma spectrometry
• Isotope-tracer development, analytical methodology, and measurement science
• Nuclear instrumentation, radiation detection, imaging, and detector development
• Radiation metrology, calibration, reference materials, and measurement standards
• Accelerator, neutron, research-reactor, and radiation-source applications
• Nuclear data, Monte Carlo simulations, artificial intelligence, and benchmarking
• Research infrastructures supporting environmental and nuclear studies

• Internal and external dosimetry and dose reconstruction
• Public, occupational, medical, and environmental radiation protection
• Low-dose effects, radiobiology, radiotoxicology, and individual radiosensitivity
• Diagnostic-imaging and radiotherapy dosimetry
• Biological dosimetry, epidemiology, and health surveillance
• Emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and medical management
• Risk perception, communication, and stakeholder engagement
• Regulatory science, standards, and radiation-protection optimization

• Safety assessment, human factors, and safety culture
• Safeguards, verification technologies, and non-proliferation
• Nuclear and radiological security and cybersecurity
• Nuclear forensics, illicit-trafficking detection, and source attribution
• Nuclear law, governance, liability, and international cooperation
• Ethics, transparency, and trust in science and technology
• Responsible research, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies
• Education, workforce development, knowledge preservation, and capacity building

• Nuclear power in net-zero pathways and integration with renewable energy
• Small modular reactors and advanced reactor systems
• Life-cycle assessment and comparative environmental footprints
• Hydrogen, process heat, district heating, and hybrid energy systems
• Water use, land use, thermal pollution, and resource requirements
• Resilience to climate extremes and critical-infrastructure risks
• Energy economics, financing, market design, and supply-chain security
• Energy justice, public participation, policy interfaces, and decision-support tools

• Fundamental and applied radiochemistry, speciation, and reaction mechanisms
• Radionuclide production using reactors, accelerators, cyclotrons, and generators
• Radiochemical separation, purification, target processing, and isotope recovery
• Radiopharmaceutical design, synthesis, radiolabeling, and quality control
• Molecular imaging using PET, SPECT, and multimodal techniques
• Targeted radionuclide therapy, theranostics, and personalized nuclear medicine
• Preclinical research, pharmacokinetics, radiobiology, and clinical translation
• Patient-specific dosimetry and treatment planning
• Medical-isotope supply chains, production standards, and regulatory requirements
• Radiation protection and radioactive-waste management in medical facilities

• Uranium and thorium exploration, mining, milling, and environmental impacts
• Nuclear fuel fabrication, performance, and advanced fuel concepts
• Reactor and coolant chemistry, corrosion, and materials degradation
• Spent-fuel characterization, storage, reprocessing, and recycling
• Actinide and fission-product chemistry
• Partitioning, transmutation, and resource recovery
• Radioactive-waste characterization, treatment, conditioning, and immobilization
• Geological disposal, engineered barriers, and long-term safety assessment
• Decommissioning technologies and contaminated-site remediation
• Life-cycle management, circularity, safeguards, and public acceptance

• Isotope techniques in agriculture, nutrition, and food authentication
• Mutation breeding and crop improvement
• Sterile insect technique and pest management
• Food irradiation and phytosanitary treatment
• Soil–plant–water and fertilizer-efficiency studies
• Veterinary nuclear applications and zoonotic-disease diagnostics
• Industrial radiography and non-destructive testing
• Radiotracers for industrial process optimization
• Radiation processing, sterilization, and advanced-material development
• Archaeometry, cultural-heritage conservation, and provenance studies

Related interdisciplinary submissions are welcome, including:

• One Health connections among environmental quality, food systems, animal health, and human health
• Environmental microbiology, antimicrobial resistance, pathogens, and wastewater-based surveillance
• Noise and light pollution, the urban exposome, and combined environmental stressors
• Environmental economics, natural-capital accounting, and ecosystem-service valuation
• Indigenous and local knowledge, environmental justice, and participatory governance
• Green chemistry, safer-by-design substances and materials, and alternatives assessment
• Sustainable cities, industrial ecology, and regenerative infrastructure
• Open science, research-data stewardship, interoperability, and reproducibility