Maintaining technical talent within the National Nuclear Laboratory. An overview from within Nexia solutions

Abstract

Nexia Solutions is a nuclear technology solutions business and is currently a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels pic (BNFL), but is scheduled to move to Government ownership through BERR as the UK's National Nuclear Laboratory later this year. We deliver products and services to customers by deploying a combination of unique facilities, leased from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), and the experience and expertise of its people. The overall skill base within the nuclear industry has declined significantly over the last decade and a large proportion of the existing research and development expertise now resides within Nexia Solutions. It is imperative to ensure further skills degradation is minimised and over time skills to support the industry gradually enhanced through appropriate strategies between government, industry and academia. Within Nexia Solutions we have a key driver to develop and maintain a skills pipeline into industry, enabling enhanced future competition and as a result deliver further value for money. To this end we have developed programmes to maintain the technical talent within our organisation, while enabling skills transfer into industry. This presentation concentrates on the overall topic of maintaining technical talent to underpin current and future nuclear programmes. Integral to this is the identification of key skills and expertise, the development and maintainence of university links including University Research Alliences (URA's), the integration into EPSRC and other research programmes, the development and implemention of bespoke training, and enabling key links into other National Labs and industry partners internationally. (12 pages)