The 8th International Conference on Isotopes (ICI) was held from August 24–28, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois USA. Organized under the auspices of the World Council on Isotopes, the ICI conferences have been held since 1995 to highlight the importance of nuclear science, medicine, and technology in advancing human health and protection of the environment. The first ICI conference was in Beijing, China. Since then, conferences have been held on nearly every major continent—in Sydney, Australia; Vancouver, Canada; Cape Town, South Africa; Brussels, Belgium; Seoul, Korea; and Moscow, Russia. This was the first time the ICI had been held in the United States and we thank the American Nuclear Society for their organizational efforts.

The goal of the ICI is to “Provide an international forum for sharing and promoting safe and environmentally sound isotope technologies that advance global well-being.” We believe the 8th ICI achieved this goal with about 50 % of the attendance by international delegates. We were very pleased to welcome large delegations from Korea, Russia, and Canada, as well as some first time ICI attendees from Saudi Arabia and Mongolia.

The members of the organizing committee set the theme for this conference as “Preparing for Tomorrow” and held special plenaries to highlight this theme. Of note were the Marie Curie Plenary celebrating women in nuclear science and the WCI Presidents Forum which addressed the question of balancing isotope supply, security and public health.

The 8th ICI delegates were welcomed by Dr. Myung-Chul Lee, the President of the World Council on Isotopes, and Dr. Peter Littlewood, Director of Argonne National Laboratory. Our opening Plenary was to hear from an extraordinary speaker Dr. Heino Niteche but unfortunately he passed away shortly before the 8th ICI. In his honor, we celebrated his life, career, and friendship with tributes from Dr. Darleane Hoffman and Dr. Annie Kersting.

Over the next 4 days some 350 papers and posters were presented highlighting all fields of nuclear and isotope technology, application, and policy. The 8th ICI organizers are grateful to the publishers and editors of the Journal Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry for publishing a portion of those papers in this special edition. The final event at the 8th ICI was to welcome and congratulate Dr. Ilham Y. Al-Qaradawi of Qatar University as chairman of the 9th ICI to be held in Doha in 2017.

Our thanks go to the many delegates and vendors who made the 8th ICI success and appreciation to the staff of the ANS for their hard work. A special thanks goes to Dr. Rolf Zeisler, the 8th ICI Technical Program Chair, without whom this publication would not have been possible.

Thank you all again and hope to see you in Doha in 2017!

Paul T. Dickman

General Chairman,

8th International Conference on Isotopes

Information about the 8th ICI can be found on the ANS Web Site under Meetings Archive http://www.ans.org/meetings/archive/ and at www.8ici.org.