Citation: Journal of the European Radon Association 2020, 1: 5361 http://dx.doi.org/10.35815/radon.v1.5361
Copyright: © 2020. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Published: 28 July 2020
A group of researchers, professionals and members of regulatory bodies, all of them experts in radon protection, started the European Radon Association (ERA) 7 years ago. The first meeting was held in the city of Boullion, a radon-prone area in Belgium. ERA was founded by 33 individuals and a few private companies. Thanks to the enthusiasm of its members and the interest of the radon community, ERA is nowadays a respectful body on radon in Europe, and it is being considered by individuals and institutions as the reference association for radon issues on the continent.
Radon research is getting more and more attention. The publication of the European Directive EURATOM BSS 59/2013 is a milestone for the protection of citizens against the health risks from radon exposure. By the Directive, European countries are obliged to set new standards in radon protection. National radon action plans are required to control radon exposure at homes and at workplaces. Therefore, the number of publications on radon research, applications, remediation methods, legislation, and so on is increasing year by year. But these publications are spread in different journals, and so far there was no specific journal dealing with radon only. The Journal of the European Radon Association (JERA) aims to cover this gap.
The journal welcomes all articles on radon-related topics. Not only basic research but also practical applications and research on thoron and decay products are welcome in order to share the state of the art with the community. The journal is a peer-reviewed publication using a double-blind review process. We believe that the articles are of high interest for all professionals working on radon and this is why JERA is an open-access journal. By doing this, we hope to contribute to the final goal of radon research, which is to reduce the number of lung cancer cases attributable to radon exposure.
All members of the public can access the journal through the website https://radonjournal.net/ to read the papers and get all information that the authors want to share. This will contribute to increase in radon awareness not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world.
The success of the journal and the long way it has taken all of us to reach to this point would not have been possible without the editorial board. The board is composed of 15 radon experts that come from research facilities, authorities and private companies. This is a multidisciplinary and outstanding team that guarantees the quality of the articles and review process.
To sum up, JERA was born to serve as a platform to the radon community where we can exchange the progress made in the radon field. Finally, a journal cannot exist without authors. Thank you so much for trusting in our journal. Thanks for reading the Journal of the European Radon Association.
Wolfgang Ringer, ERA President
Per Nilsson, ERA Vice-President
Boris Dehandschutter, ERA Treasurer
José-Luis Gutiérrez Villanueva, Editor-in-Chief and ERA Secretary