The UK has a substantial legacy of radioactively contaminated land and nuclear wastes. Further, the UK government has decided that radioactive waste will be disposed of in a geological disposal facility and that legacy nuclear sites will be decommissioned over the next decades. These tasks have been identified as some of the most demanding managerial, technical, and environmental challenges facing the UK in the next century, and are estimated to cost ~£100 billion. Coupled to this, issues concerning the accidental or illicit release of nuclear materials to the environment are at the forefront of governmental concern.
In light of these grand challenges the recently initiated Env-Rad-Net aims to engage the UK scientific research community to develop the use of STFC facilities in this field. In particular, the use of synchrotron (
Diamond), neutron (
ISIS), laser (
CLF), and high performance computing (
HPC) techniques to provide underpinning science focused on these major national nuclear projects. The overall aim of Env-Rad-Net is to build a collaborative network of academic researchers, STFC scientists, and relevant government agencies, to enable a step change in the research capability and output.
The network launch meeting aieds to bring together all researchers working in the field including (but not be limited to):
· Environmental Chemists,
· Radiochemists,
· Biogeochemists/Geomicrobiologists,
· Environmental Mineralogists,
· Quantum Chemists,
The aims of the meeting were to (1) inform researchers in the field about the scope and activities of Env-Rad-Net, and (2) assess the important and achievable research questions associated with the challenges described above, and how they can be addressed using STFC facilities, in particular using Diamond, ISIS, CLF and HPC.
The output from this meeting will be a strategy document detailing an implementation plan for Env-Rad-Net by identifying areas for forward collaboration, development, and training.
The meeting began at 9:30am on 23rd January and finished by 4pm the same day.
Registration, travel and accommodation.
Registration is now closed.
There was no cost for registration. Also, reasonable travel expenses (e.g. standard class train travel) were covered (claim forms will be provided at the meeting). Finally, overnight accommodation prior to the meeting was also be provided (at Ridgeway House, near Diamond) subject to availability. If delegates required overnight accommodation they stated this on the registration form.
The number of attendees for the meeting was be limited to 40 participants and places were assigned on a first come first served basis, however if the meeting was heavily oversubscribed we reserved the right to select participants to achieve representation across research disciplines and institutions.
A brighter light for science
