SUERC is a world-leading centre for research and international collaboration in isotope analytical science undertaking fundamental, applied and commercial research.
We provide HEIs access to infrastructure and expertise, focussing on high-end isotope measurement capability and delivering personal and collaborative research. Additionally, we provide commercial applied research to non-academic sectors.
The importance of stimulating and supporting research excellence has not fundamentally changed since our inception. Currently, SUERC hosts over £25M of state-of-the-art instrumentation and is home to a cohort of experienced technologists and researchers.
Recognising the need for balancing research leadership, collaboration and technique development, SUERC research is organised around Research Themes that reflect the breadth of research undertaken within the Centre:
Role & Purpose
To lead research activity that embraces and promotes cutting-edge technology for delivering research excellence across the isotope sciences
To develop and lead early adoption of new instrumentation, and train early career research and technical staff in state-of-the-art analytical techniques
To operate a collaborative, outward-looking and trusted research centre that contributes knowledge, training and vision to our wider academic research partners
To support and develop commercial activities that underpin our financial sustainability
Brief History
SUERC was established in East Kilbride in 1963, operating a Research Nuclear Reactor with an ethos of development and joint access to cutting-edge technology and training, core themes underpinning SUERC to this day. The Centre has continued to attract an array of world-leading instrumentation, allied to nuclear technology for radiation measurements and radiochemistry, and mass spectrometers for isotope measurements across all areas of science. Critically, SUERC provided a facility to house jointly accessible infrastructure that would not have been practical for any one HEI to site, service, and maintain.
Today, SUERC operates a programme of academic-led research and hosts one node of the UKRI-NERC National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF), a recognition of the importance of centralisation of high-end instrumentation around a critical mass of academic and technical expertise for the UK science community. After reactor decommissioning in 1997, greater emphasis was placed on establishing world-leading analytical capabilities in mass spectrometry for radio and stable isotope measurements, focusing on earth, environmental and biomedical science applications that continues to this day.
