Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory based at

Sci-Tech Daresbury Sci-Tech Daresbury, also known as Sci-Tech Daresbury Enterprise Zone, is a science and innovation campus near the village of Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, England. The site began life as the Daresbury Laboratory later adding the Cockcroft Ins ...

campus near

Daresbury Daresbury is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Halton and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. At the 2001 census it had a population of 216, increasing to 246 by the 2011 census. History The name means "Deor's fo ...

in Halton,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's coun ...

, England. The laboratory began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom,

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

. It was the second national laboratory established by the British National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science, following the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory (now

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atl ...

). It is operated by the

Science and Technology Facilities Council The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astro ...

, part of

UK Research and Innovation UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom that directs research and innovation funding, funded through the science budget of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Str ...

. As of 2018, it employs around 300 staff, with Paul Vernon appointed as director in November 2020, taking over from Professor Susan Smith who had been director from 2012.

Description

Daresbury Laboratory carries out research in fields such as accelerator science, bio-medicine, physics, chemistry, materials, engineering and computational science. Its facilities are used by scientists and engineers, from both the university research community and industrial research base. The laboratory is based at

Facilities and research

Accelerator science Accelerator physics is a branch of applied physics, concerned with designing, building and operating particle accelerators. As such, it can be described as the study of motion, manipulation and observation of relativistic charged particle beams ...

, including the

Cockcroft Institute The Cockcroft Institute is an international centre for Accelerator Science and Technology (AST) in the UK. It was proposed in September 2003 and officially opened in September 2006. It is a joint venture of Lancaster University, the University ...

which houses scientists from

STFC The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astro ...

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

University of Lancaster , mottoeng = Truth lies open to all , established = , endowment = £13.9 million , budget = £317.9 million , type = Public , city = Bailrigg, City of Lancaster , country = England , coor = , campus = Bailrigg , faculty = ...

, and

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde ( gd, Oilthigh Shrath Chluaidh) is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal char ...

. Accelerator science facilities include: **

VELA Vela or Velas may refer to: Astronomy * Vela (constellation), a constellation in the southern sky (the Sails) ** Vela (Chinese astronomy) ** Vela Pulsar ** Vela X-1, a pulsing, eclipsing high-mass X-ray binary system Places * Vela Bluff, Antarc ...

, an electron compact linear accelerator, based around an RF

photocathode gun A photocathode is a surface engineered to convert light (photons) into electrons using the photoelectric effect. Photocathodes are important in accelerator physics where they are utilised in a photoinjector to generate high brightness electron ...

. **

CLARA Clara may refer to: Organizations * CLARA, Latin American academic computer network organization * Clara.Net, a European ISP * Consolidated Land and Rail Australia, a property development consortium People * Clara (given name), a feminine giv ...

, an electron linear accelerator to be used for research in

free-electron laser A free-electron laser (FEL) is a (fourth generation) light source producing extremely brilliant and short pulses of radiation. An FEL functions and behaves in many ways like a laser, but instead of using stimulated emission from atomic or molecul ...

s. * SuperSTEM, a national research facility for advanced electron microscopy. The facility belongs to

EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to unive ...

. * The

Hartree Centre The Hartree Centre is a high performance computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) research facility focused on industry-led challenges. It was formed in 2012 at Daresbury Laboratory on the Sci-Tech Daresbury science and innovatio ...

, a

high performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a multi ...

data analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

and AI research facility. *

Scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing or scientific computation (SC), is a field in mathematics that uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and solve complex problems. It is an area of science that spans many disc ...

* Nuclear physics * Detector systems * Engineering Technology Centre * Public engagement * The

Virtual Engineering Centre

Retired facilities

NINA Nina may refer to: * Nina (name), a feminine given name and surname Acronyms * National Iraqi News Agency, a news service in Iraq * Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, on the campus of Norwegian University of Science and Technology * No incom ...

ALICE Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...

, an electron accelerator previously known as ERLP ( Energy Recovery Linac Prototype). *

EMMA Emma may refer to: * Emma (given name) Film * ''Emma'' (1932 film), a comedy-drama film by Clarence Brown * ''Emma'' (1996 theatrical film), a film starring Gwyneth Paltrow * ''Emma'' (1996 TV film), a British television film starring Kate B ...

, a linear non-scaling

FFAG accelerator A Fixed-Field alternating gradient Accelerator (FFA; also abbreviated FFAG) is a circular particle accelerator concept that can be characterized by its time-independent magnetic fields (''fixed-field'', like in a cyclotron) and the use of alternat ...

. *

HPCx HPCx was a supercomputer (actually a cluster of IBM eServer p5 575 high-performance servers) located at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, England. The supercomputer was maintained by the HPCx Consortium, UoE HPCX Ltd, which was led by the ...

, a supercomputer (replaced by the UK national supercomputing service,

HECToR In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

, based in Edinburgh). *

Synchrotron Radiation Source The Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, England was the first second-generation synchrotron radiation source to produce X-rays. The research facility provided synchrotron radiation to a large number of expe ...

Awards

In 2009 the laboratory was awarded the title of the "Most Outstanding Science Park" at the

UK Science Parks Association The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

References

External links