The mission of the HUN-REN Centre for Energy Research is to pursue international scientific research in the field of materials science in order to continuously further Hungarian nuclear safety expertise in the following areas:
- technical and scientific support for the safe operation of nuclear power plant units in Hungary: deterministic safety and radiation damage analysis, development of reactor diagnostics;
- research on the interaction between radiation (neutron, gamma and electron radiation) and matter, exploration of the biological effects of low-dose radiation;
- development and application of nuclear analytics procedures; radiochemistry, radiation protection and nuclear protection;
- development of nuclear fusion-based nuclear power generation processes, research into related technological and physical issues;
- development of space weather measurement systems for monitoring the composition and spectrum of, and changes to, the magnetic field in space;
- research and development of neutron research methods and tools for Hungarian and international use at the Budapest Neutron Centre (BNC);
- utilization of renewable energy sources, hydrogen and high-energy waste, environmental protection in analytical chemistry and physical chemistry;
- interdisciplinary research on complex functional materials and nanometer-sized structures, exploration and application of physical, chemical and biological principles in integrated micro- and nanosystems, and development of test methods;
- publication and utilization of the acquired knowledge in undergraduate and graduate training, in international and domestic industrial R&D programs, with special regard to the needs of SMEs.
The research groups are affiliated with the following three scientific institutes
- Atomic Energy Research Institute
- Institute for Energy Security and Environmental Safety
- Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science
