One objective of the RAD project was to evaluate the degree and seriousness of radioactive contamination in the former USSR.

In 1995 the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) approved the start of the RADLEG project (No. 245), Development of a Sophisticated Computer-Based Data System for Evaluation of the Radiation Legacy of the Former USSR and Setting Priorities on Remediation and Prevention Policy. The project was initiated by the RAS, the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom, now the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, or Rosatom), the Russian Research Center—Kurchatov Institute, and IIASA (Austria) and financed by the European Union and Sweden. Completed over the course of 6 years, the RADLEG project aimed to establish a system of data on radiation sources, radioactive wastes, and contaminated areas in the former USSR to facilitate creation of technically and economically effective technologies for cleaning up radioactive contamination. From 1995 through 2001, 24 Russian organizations and agencies, 5 foreign collaborators, and more than 250 individual participants worked on the project.

Based on a simple operational database created in the first phase of the project, a generally accessible RADLEG database was developed in Access and Oracle formats. During the second phase of the project, additional information obtained from both new publications and accessible archives of the participating organizations was added to the database and subjected to expert review. The updated concept for the unified structure of the database includes the following research fields (sectors) involved in the radiation legacy of the former USSR:

• Nuclear power plants

• Shore-based waste repositories, enterprises servicing nuclear power facilities, sunken and submerged objects

• Scientific research institutes, pilot plants, research nuclear reactors, and nuclear research centers

• Nuclear explosions for nuclear weapons testing purposes

• Nuclear explosions for civilian purposes

• Storage and reprocessing of nonreactor radioactive wastes and spent ionizing radiation sources

• Prospecting, mining, enrichment, and reprocessing of uranium ores

• Hexafluoride production and isotopic enrichment of uranium

• Nuclear fuel manufacturing

• Radiochemical reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel

• Production of nuclear materials

• Major radiation accidents

• Power-producing reactor facilities

For each research field, there are screen interface forms with data on the enterprises, organizations, or sites (more than 120 total), each with its own unique