The Third 2017 Fukushima Research Conference (FRC).

The Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning (CLADS), Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) held the FY2017 third Fukushima Research Conference on September 5, 2017 at the Culture Center “Manabi-no-Mori” in Tomioka Town, Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture and on September 6, 2017 at the “Hotel Tenjin” in Naraha Town, Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture. The conference was entitled, “Fuel Debris Characterization and Human Resource Development (ConFDec2017)”, which aims for promoting the research on decommissioning and developing young researchers. On the first day, keynote presentations and the group discussion were held, in which about fifty peoples participated. As the keynote presentations, Mr. Okuzumi of the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID) first presented the present status of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and the technological subjects related to the retrieval of the fuel debris. Then, researchers in the CLADS and universities presented the research results related to the nuclear fuel debris. After the keynote presentations, the group discussion was held by the young researchers in universities and JAEA. The was conducted in English by dividing into sub-groups (7～8 persons) depending on the research topics. The topics discussed were basic research on fuel debris and the necessity/importance of the decommissioning, etc. The active discussion was made in all sub-groups.

Through the discussion, the importance of the domestic and international collaboration was recognized. Also, there was an opinion that in order to keep and develop human resources related to decommissioning, it is important to expand the basic research field where students easily participate and to construct research support systems. In the present conference, about one-third of the participants were those related to universities, and about half were young researchers in their twenties and thirties. Some students expressed their impression about the conference, “The discussion and communication with domestic and oversea researchers in English was a valuable experience that cannot be obtained in the university.”. Also the conference was well received by the other participants, so it was strongly expected to hold such conference again after next year.