UK nuclear strategy welcomed by Dalton Nuclear Institute

The University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute has welcomed today’s publication of the UK’s nuclear industrial strategy and research and development (R&D) roadmap.

The UK’s Nuclear Future document, produced by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the Department for Energy and Climate Change, outlines an industrial strategy in which nuclear R&D and skills growth are critical to realising the positive economic impact of the nuclear sector to the UK.

The strategy places The University of Manchester as a lead player in the academic contribution to the agenda in terms of delivering new facilities, skills and programmes with its Dalton Cumbrian Facility at the heart of the new £15million National Nuclear Users Facility, alongside the National Nuclear Laboratory and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. The new investment will create a world-leading capability in radiation science – open to academia and industry – that will address R&D challenges across the full nuclear fuel cycle, from advanced reactor systems to the management of nuclear waste.

Professor Andrew Sherry, Director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute said: “The publication of the nuclear industrial strategy, alongside the investment in facilities, skills development and R&D, provides a real mechanism for government, industry and academia to work together to maximise the impact of nuclear R&D on the UK growth and prosperity agenda. I look forward to working with colleagues in government and industry to help shape and deliver this exciting national agenda.”

As a member of the Nuclear Energy Skills Alliance, the University – through its Dalton Nuclear Institute – will work with the National Skills Academy for Nuclear, the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and industry to establish and deliver the higher-level skills strategy – ensuring that the R&D and higher level skills issues identified by the Ad-Hoc Nuclear R&D Advisory Board, under the chairmanship of the Chief Scientific Advisor Sir John Beddington, are taken forward collaboratively.

Building on the initial nine-month programme of R&D into nuclear energy life-cycles, in which the Dalton Nuclear Institute has worked in partnership with the NNL, and a number of R&D and technology transfer projects, funded through the Technology Strategy Board and co-funded by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the University will advance its role in the development and delivery of world-leading nuclear R&D to ensure maximum impact to the UK from research innovation.

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Notes for editors

The nuclear industrial strategy sets out a strategic approach to nuclear skills development, R&D and maximising the socio-economic impact of the nuclear sector by increasing the UK content of the domestic market and expanding international engagement.

The opportunities for UK business afforded by new nuclear build in the UK, alongside maintaining current operations, decommissioning and nuclear waste management, as well as fuel cycle services, are considerable; to ensure the greatest positive impact on the UK economy requires that government, industry and the academic sector work closely together and all pull in the same direction.

The new Nuclear Industrial Council, established to drive forward this agenda, now has a blueprint.  The nuclear industrial strategy provides clarity in the priority areas of skills development (where more than 50% of the current nuclear workforce will retire within a decade); in R&D (where maintaining the option to expand nuclear generating capacity through advanced reactor systems and a closed fuel cycle requires new facilities), programmes and international engagement; in maximising the domestic content of the UK nuclear programme, and in expanding international export of nuclear technologies (including the advanced manufacturing of nuclear components).

The University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute was awarded a Diamond Jubilee Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2012 for its “internationally renowned research and skills training for the nuclear industry”.  It has led the development of new undergraduate and postgraduate nuclear programmes, established major R&D facilities, including the Dalton Cumbrian Facility (pictured), which is at the heart of the new National Nuclear Users Facility, and has forged major research partnerships with the nuclear industry.

For further information contact:

Aeron Haworth
Media Relations
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
The University of Manchester

Tel: 0161 275 8383
Mob: 07717 881563
Email: aeron.haworth@manchester.ac.uk