At the Sakharov Congress Stanislaw Shushkevich, then Prorector of Belarus State University, later chairman of the Belarus Supreme Soviet, asked Professor Richard Wilson, a director of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation (USA), to chair the International Advisory Committee for the Sakharov College of Radioecology. The College was subsequently created by the act of the Council of Ministers of Belarus (No 20, January 20, 1992) and opened its doors in Minsk later that year. Elena Bonner also serves on the seven-person Advisory Committee and the close ties between the Minsk Institute, The Sakharov Foundation(Russia)/Public Commission and ASF (USA) have been maintained.

The college opened its doors to students in summer 1992, and the first class of 40 students graduated in July 1995. Presently about 500 students are studying various aspects of radiation ecology with a sound grounding in physics and chemistry (for the complete information on the college’s offerings, see the college’s site at http://www.isir.minsk.by.

In 1994 the College changed its name to the International Institute of Radioecology and became formally separate from the Belarussian State University with which it had been associated before. In 1999 it became the International Sakharov Environmental University (ISEU).

The first Rector of the College was Dr. Alexander Lutsko. His sudden tragic death in September 1997 was a great loss to the institution he helped to create. Current Rector is Dr. Alexander Milyutin (email: milyutin@isir.minsk.by).

The International Office of the University can be reached by e-mail at iro@isir.minsk.by. Common University email is root@isir.minsk.by.

The University also maintains a Web site at http://www.isir.minsk.by and a mirror site at http://iseu.kingston.ac.uk (courtesy of Kingston University).

The college is advised by an International Advisory Committee:

Chairman. Dr. Med Edmund Lengfelder,

Professor, Universitat Munchen

Richard Wilson

Mallinckrodt professor of Physics, Harvard University (Chairman) (use Email ASF to send message to Prof. Wilson).

Elena Bonner

MD, Moscow, Chairman, The Andrei Sakharov Foundation

Dr Alexander Korovin

Medical Research Unit MRRC, Obninsk, Russia

Dr. Yuri Samodurov

Director, The Andrei Sakharov Museum and Community Center

Dr Frantisek Janouch

Siegbahn Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

Dr Anthony Mercer

Kingston University, UK

Alexander N. Rukhlya

Director of Main Department of International Relations, Belarus State University

Dr. Piotr Garncarek

First Secretary of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Belarus

Philippe Baveye, Ph.D.

Professor of Environmental Phisics and Toxicology, Department of Agricultural and Biologycal Engineering, Cornell University

Professor Dr. Rainer Frentzel-Beyme

Chief of the Division Of Environmental and Occupation Epidemoilogy Bremen Institute of Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS) And Head of the Department of Environmental Epidemiology, Centre of Environmental Research and Tecnology, University of Bremen