About RISS

  The Research Institute of Science for Safety and Sustainability at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology is a new research organization inaugurated on April 1, 2008 by the daring fusion of the three research units − the Research Center for Chemical Risk Management, the Research Center for Life Cycle Assessment and the Research Core for Explosion Safety.
  In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the global environment and the depletion of resources in addition to disasters, safety problems and risks of chemical substances in industrial activities. Since these issues are mostly in a tradeoff relationship, it becomes necessary to solve them first and then overcome many other problems to build a safe and sustainable society.  
  During these past few years in particular, there was an increasing awareness that doing individual assessment and research activities only, such as a hazard assessment, risk assessment and lifecycle assessment, including energy efficiency, is not enough effort to tackle these difficult problems and build a safe and sustainable society. For this reason, it became an urgent task to establish a research system that allows coordinated efforts beyond the existing boundaries of research fields and a flexible approach to integrated research.
  In the face of these difficulties, the research institute is committed to helping with the creation of a safer and more sustainable society through the integration of research results and methods obtained so far in the individual research areas, such as those concerned with the risk and hazard of chemical substances, lifecycle assessments relating to industrial products and consumers’ environmental impact and through the presentation of on the guidelines for choosing production and consumption aimed at building a sustainable society and the policy recommendations based on scientific expertise along such guidelines that is designed to meet the demand of society.