Lancaster University to create £2m nuclear facility control room simulator

Lancaster University will strengthen its support for the UK’s clean energy goals and help enhance the country’s future nuclear safety and security with the creation of a new nuclear facility control room simulator.

Funded through a £2m grant as part of an £88.5m capital investment by the Office for Students (OfS) into Universities and colleges across England, Lancaster University will develop a nationally-unique educational facility designed to train future professionals in nuclear engineering, cyber security and related disciplines.

Consisting of banks of digital screens, and software similar to that found in nuclear control rooms, a novel aspect of the immersive high-fidelity teaching simulator, which will launch in Spring 2026, is its highly reconfigurable design.

From launch, this asset will support teaching using software similar to those found for a range of reactor types, including Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs), Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), and tokamak fusion reactors, with software codes developed by Norway's Institute for Energy Technology and Tokamak Energy.’

Addressing the urgent need for advanced workforce training in the nuclear sector, the creation of this cutting-edge facility is aligned to the UK’s modern industrial strategy and National Nuclear Strategic Plans for skills by supporting teaching across undergraduate and post-graduate Lancaster University programmes.

The initiative capitalises on, and will enhance, Lancaster University expertise across a range of disciplines including Nuclear Engineering, Cyber Security and Psychology.

Professor Rebecca Lingwood, interim vice-chancellor at Lancaster University, said: “This significant investment by the OfS will deliver a next generation high-fidelity teaching asset. Highly reconfigurable, the simulator will be an invaluable teaching tool augmenting Lancaster’s long-established strength across disciplines such as nuclear engineering and cyber security.

“It will support Lancaster’s key role in helping meet the skills gap challenge by enhancing the training of future generations of professionals with ambitions to enter a low-carbon energy sector vital for national energy security, as well as a critical sector for the region.”

Dr Samuel Murphy, director of studies for nuclear engineering at Lancaster University, said: “This exciting new facility will greatly enhance the experience and learning opportunities for students on our Nuclear Engineering programmes, helping to maintain Lancaster’s position as a leading provider of nuclear education in the UK.”

Prof Paul Smith, chair in networking and principal investigator of the initiative, said: “This simulator, which is nationally unique in its highly-reconfigurable characteristics, will enable the simulation of scenarios where nuclear facilities are cyber attacked, providing valuable in-depth learning experiences for our cyber security students, some of which may become future cyber security professionals protecting our critical national infrastructure.”

Lancaster University currently hosts the only single honours Nuclear Engineering undergraduate programme in the UK and it has one of the UK’s strongest nuclear science and technology research communities with expertise across the fission and fusion fuel cycles, nuclear medicine, nuclear security and safeguards.

The facility will also draw on Lancaster University’s Psychology Department’s world-leading expertise in security and safety behaviour in high-risk settings, and on group decision making under uncertain or emergency conditions.

Located on Lancaster University’s campus, and sitting alongside the university’s Data Immersion Suite, previously funded by the OfS, the simulator will be a physical space with flexibility to simulate different control room designs.

It will include technology hardware and software that is typically found in current and next-generation control rooms, leading-edge Audio-Visual equipment that can be used to flexibly configure different scenarios and record student interactions in the simulator environment, as well as furniture that can be reconfigured to represent different control room layouts.

The simulator will be an invaluable teaching tool to enable students to put into practice some of the theory from their undergraduate, master’s and doctorate courses, such as Introduction to Nuclear Engineering and Nuclear Fusion Engineering in the university’s school of engineering and the school of computing and communication’s third-year undergraduate module on Secure Cyber-Physical Systems. It will also support the work of students on the MSc in Psychology and Behavioural Analytics.

The simulation facility will also be used to train Lancaster University PhD students from the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Skills And Training Underpinning a Renaissance in Nuclear (SATURN), which is training the next generation of nuclear energy researchers.

The OfS is providing project funding for 60 universities and colleges.