The International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) was initiated in 1992 by the U.S. Department of Energy. The ICSBEP became an official activity of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency in 1995. Representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Japan, the Russian Federation, Hungary, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, Kazakhstan, Spain, and Israel are now participating. The purpose of the ICSBEP is to identify, evaluate, verify, and formally document a comprehensive and internationally peer-reviewed set of criticality safety benchmark data. The work of the ICSBEP is published as an OECD handbook entitled "International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments" (ICSBEP Handbook). The 2002 edition of the ICSBEP Handbook contains benchmark model specifications for 2881 critical or subcritical configurations that are intended for validating computer codes that calculate effective neutron multiplication and for testing basic nuclear data.