The UK’s nuclear research community is getting a coordinated, long-term pass to the country’s most advanced experimental facilities—from fusion materials testbeds to robotics labs for decommissioning waste. This matters because the UK has committed to generating significant nuclear power to reach net zero by 2050, but the research needed to make that happen—on reactor materials, waste disposal, and fusion components—requires expensive, specialised equipment that no single university or company can afford alone. Without a central access scheme, many researchers, especially early-career scientists, would be locked out of the work that underpins the entire nuclear strategy. If successful, the National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF) will train the next generation of nuclear engineers and scientists on world-class kit, expand the scale and ambition of UK nuclear projects, and strengthen international collaborations—including a joint US-UK materials irradiation campaign. The beneficiaries are not just academics: they include the bodies delivering the UK’s nuclear programmes (Great British Nuclear, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, UKAEA), their industrial supply chains (Rolls-Royce, Jacobs, small fission-sector firms), and ultimately the nation’s energy security and net-zero targets.
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Nuclear energy is recognised as an integral part of a secure and prosperous future for the UK. Decarbonisation and attainment of net zero by 2050 is unachievable without significant nuclear energy in the mix. To do this there needs to be continued underpinning nuclear research in the UK. This requires access to the National Nuclear User Facilities for all researchers from PhD to Professors. NNUF Successor will provide this access across a wide range of nuclear areas, from materials for fusion to robotics for decommission and disposal, and across diverse project types, covering both early scoping studies to larger long term collaborations. Our vision for the next stage of the National Nuclear User Facility project is to move UK nuclear research closer to the international ‘top table’ by using the state of the art infrastructure provided by NNUF(1) and (2) to further expand the scale and ambition of UK nuclear research, continue to train and grow the nuclear research community, and to leverage resources to build key international collaborations. This will be done through the following: to continue to support the widest possible utilisation of the NNUF facilities network by the UK nuclear research community, increasing the volume, ambition and impact of activity by emphasising and encouraging larger/longer access projects; to extract maximum value from the NIFT-E joint US-UK materials irradiation campaign initiated in the previous phase of NNUF; use the NNUF access scheme to provide high quality research training in response to Government’s Nuclear Skills Task Force report; seek to leverage the NNUF investment to build on existing and to establish key new international research collaborations. Nuclear technology underpins the UK’s ambitions in Net Zero, energy security and defence, while managing our nuclear waste legacy has been described by Government as ‘one of the most demanding managerial, technical and environmental challenges facing the UK in the next century’ (DTI, 2002). Beneficiaries of NNUF Successor will be the UK nation state, the bodies charged with delivering its nuclear programmes (Great British Nuclear, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, UKAEA, the Defence Nuclear Organisation) and their supply chains from leading international blue chips (Rolls-Royce, Jacobs) through academia to small and medium enterprises in the fission sector, the Nuclear AMRC and the developing supply chain for fusion materials and components. These benefits will not just be in the form of research outputs but also in developing the students and researchers who will be trained on world leading nuclear research equipment and be the next generation of leaders in the UK nuclear industry.
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