Oxford leads in £80M National Nuclear User Facility Award

The UK Government has awarded £80M to enhance national facilities for the study of radioactive materials, which is phase 2 of the National Nuclear User Facility project, known as 'NNUF2'.

NNUF2 will run until April 2023, and will support 20 individual projects in UK universities and national laboratories, including a neutron source at Birmingham University, investment in facilities for nuclear robotics at Bristol, Manchester and UKAEA, and a new active Atom Probe Tomography facility in Oxford.

The award also includes £6.5M to allow any UK-based researcher to apply to use these new facilities as they come online, and a management grant to oversee the installation phase and to manage the access scheme.

Professor Chris Grovenor (of this department and a Fellow of St Anne's College), is the lead for the entire project, and with Professor Malcolm Joyce (University of Lancaster) and Professor Francis Livens (University of Manchester), will be ensuring this new investment generates new research activity and leads to significant developments in nuclear science and technology.