Nuclear Engineering Course at Lancaster University

Lancaster University has launched a new course designed to provide the education and skills needed to design and decommission nuclear engineering systems.

The new undergraduate course – an MEng in Nuclear Engineering – is now recruiting its first intake of students for October 2006.

The course – believed to be the first of its kind - is designed to plug a predicted skills shortfall in the North West’s nuclear engineering industry in the coming years.

The Northwest Development Agency has identified the need for up to 2,000 graduates per year to manage existing nuclear facilities, to oversee the decommissioning process and to contribute to new developments.

The course will provide a comprehensive education in engineering focussing on the design and operation of facilities that enable electricity to be generated in nuclear power plant as well as the specific engineering challenges of the decommissioning process.

It will also teach students about the medical applications of Nuclear technology for example cancer treatments such as radiotherapy and nuclear medicine.

Dr Malcolm Joyce said: “The international commercial nuclear sector is currently experiencing a revolution as many of the older facilities are retired and demolished and new plant are being designed and built in Europe and the Far-east.

“In many cases this operation requires the development of new plant and waste processing routes that will pose exciting engineering challenges to tomorrow’s engineering graduates. This course has been designed specifically with these challenges in mind.”

In response to other engineering challenges, the University is also launching an MEng in Sustainable Engineering. This course will address the increasing importance of long term impacts engineering activities have on our environment alongside more conventional engineering wisdom.