About INIS
INIS, the International Nuclear Information System, was established in 1970 in response to the IAEA's mandate "... to foster the exchange of scientific and technical information on peaceful uses of atomic energy".
For 38 years, INIS has been successfully fulfilling its mission to:
- create a reservoir of nuclear information for current and future generations
- provide quality nuclear information services to Member States, and
- assist with the development of a culture of information and knowledge sharing.
INIS processes most of the world’s scientific and technical literature on a wide range of subjects from nuclear engineering, safeguards and non-proliferation to applications in agriculture and health.
INIS Products
There are three major INIS products:
- The INIS Database, which today contains 2.9 million bibliographic records; it is accessible by subscription only and has currently 1.3 million authorized users.
- A unique collection of over 850 000 full-text documents (non-conventional "grey" literature – NCL) in 63 languages, including many documents that cannot easily be found anywhere else.
- The INIS Multilingual Thesaurus – a major tool for describing nuclear information and knowledge in a structured form, which assists in multilingual and semantic searches.
International Cooperation
INIS is operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in collaboration with, at present, 118 Member States and 23 International Organizations. Active partnerships with other organizations in Member States are also developed.
INIS' strength is based on this international co-operation. Representation in the system is at governmental level. National INIS Centres are responsible for all related activities in a country.
Decentralization
Decentralisation is an important element of INIS' success. Collecting relevant literature and disseminating INIS output products to end-users is decentralized to National INIS Centres in Member States.
This trusted international mechanism allows INIS to
- achieve widest coverage of national nuclear-related literature
- overcome cultural and language barriers, and
- give every INIS Member the right to access nuclear information of all other INIS Members.
INIS Secretariat
The IAEA has a dual role in INIS: it is an INIS Member and also functions as the INIS Secretariat, located in the INIS and Nuclear Knowledge Management Section of the IAEA's Department of Nuclear Energy.