Nearly 100 research posts at risk at Sheffield nuclear centre

Dozens of jobs are set to be axed at a flagship research centre at the University of Sheffield.

Staff at the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Nuclear AMRC), which employs 122 people across sites in Sheffield, Derby and Warrington, were informed about the likely cuts in a video call.

In one scenario outlined by Sheffield, only about 30 staff are likely to be retained, and they will be absorbed into the larger university-run Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, which employs about 700 staff.

The Nuclear AMRC is one of seven High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres that were brought together in 2011 by Innovate UK to support commercialisation of new products and processes.

The centre is owned by the University of Sheffield but has industrial partners such as Rolls-Royce, Sheffield Forgemasters and French energy giant EDF, which have made multimillion-pound investments at its site on the Sheffield-Rotherham border.

The centre’s research is part of work to ensure that a new generation of small modular reactors (SMR) are built in the UK, potentially securing up to 40,000 manufacturing jobs in South Yorkshire.

Delays to the roll-out of SMRs in Europe – caused in part by worries related to the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 – have meant that the anticipated orders of reactors have not materialised as hoped. However, leaders in the nuclear sector insist that the push to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 will require the creation of these energy plants, which cost about £1.8 billion each.

Richard Caborn, a former Sheffield MP, said he was “greatly concerned” by the proposed research job cuts because the Nuclear AMRC “has been critical in working with the British supply chain to ensure when we start building these SMRs they are built in the UK”.

“We’ve seen in recent years that security of energy supply is as important as national security, and nuclear energy will be part of securing our energy in future,” said Mr Caborn, who served as a trade minister in the Blair government.

Given the centre’s strategic importance for nuclear energy, there was a “strong case” for the Nuclear AMRC to be taken out of the university’s control and nationalised, Mr Caborn added.

“The Nuclear AMRC has national importance for both industrial strategy and energy security – its future should not be decided by an individual institution, so it possibly should be taken out of the hands of the university,” he said, noting that the defence manufacturer Sheffield Forgemasters was taken over by the government in 2021 because the parts it made were vital for Royal Navy ships and submarines.

Koen Lamberts, Sheffield’s vice-chancellor, said the proposed redundancies and “changes to the current structure of the Nuclear AMRC” would help to “deliver our priorities around clean energy research and innovation”.

“The proposals have been shared with our Nuclear AMRC staff, and there will be a 90-day consultation to consider the proposals and explore future options. We are actively working to reduce the need for redundancies where possible, and we are supporting our staff throughout the change process,” said Professor Lamberts.

“The plans propose that the Nuclear AMRC’s core manufacturing research and development activities will be retained by the University of Sheffield,” he added, stating that the “proposed changes reflect the university’s key strength in nuclear manufacturing R&D” and that “our work to support the design and production of SMRs will continue to grow and offer significant opportunities for the South Yorkshire region”.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com