It is for me an honour and a privilege to have been asked to open the technical programme of the 1988 MRS conference with a talk on the important topic of research priorities in radioactive waste management. It is essential in this field that we continually review the relevance and applicability of our work; this is clearly recognized by the organisers of the MRS conferences, as witnessed also by the 1985 meeting where an entire session was devoted to overviews of research priorities, and by the 1982 meeting, where a very interesting panel discussion on the topic was led by Professor Tom Pigford.