Progress in “COE-INES”

In the year 2002 and 2003, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology started the “ The 21st Century Center of Excellence (COE) Program”, which is planned to continue for 5 years. A program proposed by Tokyo Institute of Technology “Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems for Sustainable Development of the World” simply called as COE-INES was selected as only one program in nuclear engineering field. The program consists of four main activities: research, education, society and internationalism. The research will be performed on the innovative nuclear energy systems, which include innovative nuclear reactors and innovative fuel cycles. Both free thinking and overall vision are taken on the research, and stressed on education also. In the education, COE-INES Captainship Program is promoted by integrating research with education, and we will foster creative researchers and engineers. Society is also a very important issue for nuclear energy. We try to coevolve nuclear energy with society and to strive towards the fulfillment of SR as well as to research innovative nuclear energy systems. We believe these ideas are occupied by many scientists in various countries. Then we are promoting the international collaboration for research and education on innovative nuclear energy systems.