This study presents a strategy to enhance the proliferation resistance and performance of the natural uranium fueled nuclear research reactors, similar in design to National Experimental Reactor (NRX) and Canadian Indian Reactor (CIR) by adjusting the fuel rod design parameters while keeping the core dimensions the same as reported in earlier studies [Khan, M.J., Aslam, Ahmad, N., 2004. Neutronics analyses of natural uranium fueled, light water cooled, heavy water moderated and graphite reflected nuclear reactors. Annals of Nuclear Energy 31, 1331–1356; Khan, M.J., Aslam, Ahmad, N., 2005. Proliferation resistance potential and burnup characteristics of an equilibrium core of novel natural uranium fueled nuclear research reactor. Annals of Nuclear Energy 32, 612–620; Khan, M.J., Aslam, Ahmad, N., 2006. Core performance and proliferation resistance prospective of a novel natural uranium fueled, heavy water moderated nuclear research reactor. Progress in Nuclear Energy]. This study augments our earlier investigations regarding the proliferation resistance where we used the reduced feed and discharge inventory strategy by adjusting the core design parameters and reducing the core size in radial direction. The current analysis showed that the proliferation resistance potential of the core proposed in our previous study could be increased along with enhancement of its performance in terms of flux per unit core power. For a typical case, the production of 239Pu (kg/year) in the discharged fuel irradiated was reduced to ∼40% of that produced in NRX and CIR and 75% of that produced in the compact core proposed earlier. The thermal flux, averaged over the central irradiation thimble volume, per unit core power was increased by 25% compared to that of the proliferation resistant compact core and turned out to be 234% of that provided by NRX and CIR cores.