Volume 9 issue 1 Nuclear Future


Academics go NUCLEAR John Roberts and Robin Grimes report on a unique consortium


Delegates at the UK Nuclear Academics Discussion Meeting held at the University of Oxford, September 2012


The Nuclear Universities Consortium for Learning, Engagement and Research (NUCLEAR) was established by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to: 1. Widen academic and industrial collaboration and enhance knowledge transfer;


2. Facilitate access to unique nuclear research facilities in the UK and overseas;


3. Support Government, the regulator, industry and academia in nuclear programme development; and


4. Promote UK capability and knowledge internationally. A key aspect of this is to facilitate an annual meeting to bring together all the universities providing nuclear research and education. The first UK Nuclear Academic Discussion Meeting took place at the University of Oxford in September 2012 with over 80 academics attending from over 25 different universities. The first aim of this first meeting was to discuss the current nuclear academic scene and hear the views of the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government Sir John Beddington. Thus – after introductory presentations by Professor Robin Grimes, Principal Investigator of the NUCLEAR consortium, and Neil Bateman, Nuclear Programme Manager for the EPSRC – Sir John outlined his views on the need for university nuclear research over the coming years and decades. He discussed the ongoing decommissioning programme as well as the plans for a geological disposal facility and the new build of nuclear power plants and stated that “in my personal view, nuclear energy must remain a crucial part of the nation’s energy generation mix. Nuclear research is key to delivering that ambition and to exploiting the international opportunities that nuclear can bring to the UK.” There then followed a series of summary presentations on recent


and current EPSRC-funded nuclear research consortia in the UK: • KNOO – Keeping the Nuclear Option Open, www.knoo.org • UK – India collaborations on life assessment and structural integrity, modelling and simulation, and severe accident and nuclear safety


• DIAMOND – Decommissioning, Immobilisation and Management of Nuclear Waste for Disposal, www.diamondconsortium.org


• BANDD – Biogeochemical Application in Nuclear Decommissioning and Waste Disposal


• PROMINENT – Performance and Reliability of Metallic Materials for Nuclear Fission Power Generation


• BIGRAD – BIogeochemical Gradients and Radionuclide Transport, www.bigradnerc.com


• MBASE – a University of Manchester project in collaboration with the National Nuclear Laboratory, Amec and Idaho National Laboratory in the USA on the Molecular Basis of Advanced Nuclear Fuel Separations


• Nuclear Data – a collaboration of the Universities of Manchester, Surrey and York on fission yields, decay heat and neutron reaction cross sections


• Nuclear Graphite Expert Group at The University of Manchester, www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/research/sigs/ nucleargraphite/


Overall the nuclear research portfolio at UK universities received approximately £12m of funding from the EPSRC for the financial year ending March 2012. The delegates then split into six groups to conduct SWOT analyses


in the following: • Environmental and Geological Disposal • Fuel Materials and Reprocessing • Future Systems • Reactor Operations Control and Instrumentation • Structural Materials • Wasteforms and Decommissioning Using these analyses, the Grand Challenges in each area were identified. The aim is to use these to help Government to understand the capabilities and research aspirations of academia. The outcomes of the SWOT analyses were also used as the starting point for a longer discussion of research Grand Challenges for academia. Going forward we can use these to establish how we are progressing. SWOT and Grand Challenge outputs have been published on the NUCLEAR consortium website www. nuclearuniversities.com The next meeting will be held at Birmingham University on


the 19th and 20th of September on the theme of increasing university nuclear education and training provision, both nationally and internationally. If you would like to know more about the opportunities offered by the NUCLEAR consortium nationally and internationally, whether you are based in a university or industry, please contact any of the consortium members through the website.


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