UK and Japan partner on nuclear waste projects

News

A new partnership between Japan and the UK will see research teams from the two countries collaborating on technology to improve nuclear waste disposal.

Sellafield nuclear site
Sellafield nuclear site - UKRI

Sellafield in the UK and the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan are two of the most high profile nuclear sites in the world, with both requiring extensive decommissioning in the coming decades. In light of this, the two countries have established the UK-Japan Civil Nuclear Research programme, a partnership between UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

“Processing nuclear waste is an enormous challenge for human civilisation,” said George Freeman, UK minister of state at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

“Bringing together the UK and Japan’s brightest minds, to focus our shared expertise in sensing, data, chemistry and more, cuts to the core of what this Fund and our science superpower mission is all about – harnessing UK scientific leadership through deeper international collaboration for global good, to tackle the most pressing needs facing humanity.”

Two projects, led by the universities of Strathclyde and Sheffield, will share in £1m of UKRI funding, delivered through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

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nuclear decommissioning