The RAIS began in 1996 under the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge Operations Office (ORO) to provide a clearing house for risk assessment information used to evaluate and remediate legacy contamination from the Manhattan Project. The RAIS was designed to provide all risk assessment processes in a transparent forum for the public, subcontractors and State and Federal regulators. Guidance documents, tutorials, databases, historical information and risk models were all housed and integrated on the RAIS.

DOE's cleanup contractor, URS | CH2M Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR), continues to support the RAIS to maintain the information and to update databases and tools based on new Guidance through a contract with the University of Tennessee. The RAIS server is housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Today the RAIS not only supports environmental restoration activities for the ORO but also provides its databases and tools to the world. Registered RAIS users are from 45 State Governments, many Federal agencies and over 60 countries. Many Universities also use the RAIS as part of their course material. It is the goal of the RAIS team to continue to freely provide this information and assist our users with all their risk assessment needs.