Sellafield Ltd is celebrating 10 years of its pioneering Game Changers programme. It brings new ideas and technology to the UK’s toughest nuclear clean-up challenges.

Game Changers connects Sellafield with innovators from industry, academia, and beyond. It gives new technologies a route into the nuclear sector. Doing so, helps turn promising ideas into practical solutions.

The programme has helped speed up problem-solving. Welcoming fresh thinking from outside the sector has helped improve safety. It has also reduced hazards and saved money.

Game Changers is designed and delivered by innovation specialists FIS360. They work in partnership with the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL). FIS360 supports both challenge owners and solution providers from start to finish. It helps them develop and test new technologies. These have the potential for deployment across the industry.

The programme is now one of the UK’s top innovation initiatives. It has supported hundreds of projects. These are changing how nuclear sites are cleaned up safely and efficiently.

Game Changers has:

• received more than 1,000 applications from organisations around the world
• funded more than 300 feasibility studies
• enabled over 125 proof-of-concept projects
• supported small and medium-sized enterprises

This helps to strengthen the UK’s supply chain and support economic growth.

Several projects show how the programme turns ideas into solutions with real-world impact:

Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

Developed with Ice9 Robotics. The Micro UAV is a small drone that can fly through openings as narrow as 140mm. It captures live images and data from confined and hazardous areas.

The drone gives access to parts of nuclear facilities that were difficult to inspect. It keeps people out of hazardous areas and supports better decommissioning decisions.

It could also save up to £2 million per use case avoiding the need to create new access points.

Seracam

Serac Imaging Systems developed Seracam in partnership with Loughborough University.

The imaging system overlays radiation data onto live video. This allows operators to identify and monitor contamination hotspots in real time.

Sellafield has purchased a Seracam unit. It has been trialled successfully in the MOX Demonstration Facility. Early results show strong potential to improve safety, reduce risk, and speed up work.

Smart Cans

This is a radiation-tolerant sensor system developed by Sensor Driven. It monitors the temperature and pressure of nuclear storage cans. It alerts operators to changes in real time.

The sensors have been miniaturised, tested in harsh environments, and fitted to storage cans using a new welding process.

The technology could improve the safety of long-term Special Nuclear Material storage. It will do this while reducing the need for manual inspections and maintenance. Potential cost savings are between £20 million and £50 million.

The future

The next decade of Game Changers will focus on:

• scaling up successful technologies
• speeding up deployment
• attracting more world-class innovators to the sector

Robin Ibbotson, Sellafield Ltd’s chief technology officer, said:

“I’m proud of the innovation we see across Sellafield and the people who solve problems every day. Year after year, we show what happens when we challenge accepted thinking.

Game Changers takes our challenges beyond the nuclear industry. It connects us with organisations of all sizes and with partners from around the world. Over the last decade, that approach has produced solutions we would never have found on our own.

The programme is helping us deliver safer, faster, and more cost-effective operations. And we’re only at the beginning. Sellafield still has decades of important work ahead.

With the right partners, we can solve any challenge. That’s why we’ll keep sharing our problems, finding new ideas, and working together to deliver our mission faster.”

Credit: Adobe Stock

Many of the hot weather problems experienced by our physical infrastructure stem from the behaviour of most materials, which tend to expand and soften as the temperature increases. This affects roads, railways and bridges directly in several ways.

Most of the UK’s roads are surfaced with asphalt, a composite material comprising aggregates with about five per cent by weight of bitumen binder. The structural performance, serviceability and rate of deterioration of an asphalt road are all directly affected by temperature. During heatwaves, asphalt road surfaces can reach temperatures in excess of 60C. This causes the bitumen binder to soften, leading to deformation, surface depression and bleeding under traffic loads. The current typical emergency response, including deploying gritting vehicles to spread granite dust over melting asphalt, is a reactive, ad-hoc approach that treats symptoms rather than causes.

Various materials and technologies have been investigated to improve the resilience of asphalt pavements to high temperatures and climate-related deterioration. These include modified epoxy asphalt surfaces and modified epoxy chip seals, alongside fibre mastic asphalt, as potentially climate-resilient and long-life surfacing technologies. Advanced pavement materials, including polymer-modified binders and heat-reflective surface treatments, can improve resistance to temperature-related deterioration in vulnerable corridors. At the same time, solutions must look beyond passive protection and towards infrastructure that actively manages thermal conditions. Thermo-active road technology is an intriguing possibility, which uses embedded heat exchange loops to capture excess thermal energy from pavement surfaces during peak heat periods. By regulating pavement temperatures, these systems could reduce heat-induced damage while harvesting renewable thermal energy for beneficial reuse.

Metal bridges and other infrastructure assets are also susceptible to thermal stresses that can affect their long-term performance and safety. This is particularly important for older bridges, which may not have been designed for such extreme conditions. Bridges are designed to move, to accommodate expansion in hot weather and contraction in cold weather, as the temperature changes. With higher temperature extremes, this movement can be larger than anticipated by the designers, leading to the bridge expansion joints – which allow bridges to safely expand and contract – running out of travel and starting to stress bridge girders and decks. Bigger movements may also affect bridge bearings, road surfaces and bridge members.

Excessive thermal expansion of moveable (swing or lifting) bridges may prevent them from properly opening or closing, resulting in jamming. This happened to New York City’s Third Avenue Bridge in 2024, when extreme temperatures led to the bridge being stuck for hours. Concrete structures are also vulnerable because high temperatures can cause drying, exacerbating shrinkage, and worsening cracking, particularly where the concrete is already aged or poorly maintained. Extreme heat can also affect bridge bearings, bridge cables, drainage systems and protective coatings, causing materials such as rubber, polymers, and paints to degrade more quickly.   

In our railways, the metal rails (which, like road pavements, can reach temperatures in excess of 60C in direct sunlight on a hot day) tend to expand with increasing temperature. Modern rails are continuously welded into long lengths, which means that they are unable to expand hence develop internal compressive stresses at temperatures above 27C. If the track is not well-supported and/or there is a significant pre-existing imperfection, there is a risk that the track may buckle which could cause a train to derail. A further problem is that the overhead wires by which electrical current is conveyed to trains on overhead electrified railways also expands with increasing temperatures. Although equipped with automatic tensioning devices, these can run out of capacity at very high temperatures. The overhead lines may then sag to the extent that they become caught up by the current-collecting pantographs attached to trains. While constrained by materials technology, solutions can be found at system level for example by ensuring that track is well-supported both vertically and laterally, and investing for increased operational flexibility and the ability to carry out fast interventions.

Periods of sustained high temperatures are often also very dry. Hence prolonged heatwaves dry out vegetation and soils, increasing the risk and intensity of wildfires. When fires reach the wildland-urban interface, critical infrastructure, including power and communication towers, can be exposed to intense heat. This can affect the mechanical properties and load-bearing capacity of structural materials, potentially disrupting essential networks at precisely the time when communities are most vulnerable. We have seen in recent weeks how large fires near a major transport corridor can lead to its closure, whether it is a road or a railway.

As clay soils dry, they develop what is termed a ‘soil moisture deficit’ and shrink. This causes problems for roads and railways on clay soils and clay embankments. Shrinkage settlement of an underlying clay soil adversely affects railway track geometry and may lead to a loss of support, both of which increase the risk of track buckling. To mitigate this, sometimes disruptive speed restrictions are imposed. On roads, drying and shrinkage of the underlying ground leads to longitudinal tracks, rutting and bumpiness, as well as accelerating the rate of road surface deterioration. Drying-induced ground movements can also cause water pipes to fracture or break, leading to increased leakage rates.

Rising temperatures are also creating significant operational and occupational challenges for the construction sector, increasing risks to worker wellbeing while reducing productivity and affecting project delivery schedules. Construction workers are among the occupational groups most vulnerable to heat because of the physically demanding nature of their work, prolonged outdoor exposure, the use of personal protective equipment, and limited access to effective cooling measures. This results in high levels of fatigue, reduced concentration and heat-related illnesses, including dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

As the UK continues to experience increased temperatures, a more systematic approach to managing occupational heat risk is required, with clearer guidance, improved training and investment in practical adaptation measures. This will help protect workers’ health and safety while improving productivity, programme certainty and the long-term resilience of the construction industry.

The challenge is multifaceted, so needs to be addressed in a number of ways. By investing in more resilient designs capable of withstanding extreme environmental conditions, the UK can enhance infrastructure robustness to extreme heat stress. Improving the ability to predict failures and consequent disruptions will facilitate a proactive approach to enhance resilience. With this, there must come the ability to respond quickly and reconfigure the affected system(s) at national level. A combination of these elements can enhance infrastructure resilience to minimise disruption, protect public safety, reduce risks to workers and ensure that essential services continue to function effectively as heatwaves become more frequent and intense.

This article was co-authored by members of the UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC)

Contributing authors

• Professor William Powrie, University of Southampton
• Professor Mehran Eskandari Torbaghan, University of Birmingham
• Dr Alba Fuertes, University Reading
• Dr Benyi Cao, Dr Yidu Bu and Dr Boulent Imam, University of Surrey

Sarah Hall considers how global economic shocks can impact regional inequality and argues that any economic devolution agenda must confront the trade-offs that arise as a result, using the example of the Jaguar Land Rover job losses.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced that it will cut 4,000 jobs over the next two years. The company currently employs 44,000 people of whom the vast majority – 34,000 – are based in the UK. The job losses will be focused on its Coventry head office.

The announcement comes at an important time for the Burnham government. On the same day as the JLR announcement, Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey delivered his ‘Growth Speech’ in which he reiterated the government’s commitment to “more investment, more innovation and more jobs”. The JLR announcement clearly shows the difficult trade-offs the government faces as it tries to deliver these ambitions in terms of: profound regional economic inequality in the UK; the UK’s place in a more protectionist international economy; and the relationship between green growth and economic resilience.

JLR’s announcement is a reminder that even low levels of growth are distributed in highly unequal regional ways in the UK. This means that the impacts of declining economic prospects and redundancies in any one sector are not evenly distributed across the UK. In the case of automotive, figures show that the West and East Midlands, (the former housing JLR’s UK activities) account for 48.3% of the UK’s automotive value added. This concentration is delivered partly by large headquarter bases. But these headquarters also act as anchors to significant clusters of small and medium enterprises that have developed specialist niches within complex and dynamic automotive supply chains. This was clearly seen by the impact of the temporary shutdown of JLR activities in late 2025 following a cyberattack. Some of the most significant impacts were felt by smaller firms which were forced to temporarily suspend operations and cancel orders.

At one level, this regional concentration might benefit from the new government’s commitment to greater devolution – which offers the prospect of being able to better tailor pro-growth economic policies to the specific requirements of different parts of the UK, notably in skills. However, the risks need to be acknowledged. Threats to regionally concentrated industries need to be framed as important for UK growth as a whole and not left to newly emerging forms of devolved administration. This is particularly important given the ways in which contractions in one sector impact the social fabric and cultural identity of places, and regions that are dependent on one industry will have less resilience to economic shocks.

Turning to geopolitics, the JLR announcement is one of the clearest examples of the challenges the Prime Minister faces in his ambitions to ‘reindustrialise’ the UK economy at a time when the world economy is becoming more protectionist. The causes for the financial difficulties facing JLR are many and varied, but central among them is its exposure to the new US tariff regimes. JLR is particularly exposed to US industrial policy because the US represents its second biggest export market (after the EU) with one in four of its cars being sold there. New tariffs were announced by the US for car imports in April 2025 as part of a commitment to support the US car industry. The tariff rate for the UK changed over the spring and this uncertainty itself was unhelpful for companies such as JLR in terms of planning. The agreement reached with the UK was that the UK would have a lower rate than other countries of 10% on the first 100,000 UK manufactured cars imported to the US per annum with any imports over this have a 27.5% tariff applied (the rate applied to the majority of US automotive imports).

These tariff changes were cited as leading to a decline of 15% in JLR sales in spring 2025, with the company pausing shipments to the US in April 2025 until the UK’s final tariff rate was confirmed. Beyond the US, there are other threats to reindustrialising the UK’s economy. Support for UK manufacturing through subsidies has not been forthcoming, due, in large part, to fiscal constraints. And the EU’s Made in Europe program, which seeks to protect EU manufacturers from competition, particularly from China, poses threats to British based manufacturers by excluding them from subsidies to EU firms.

Finally, the government faces difficult decisions regarding how to deliver growth in ways that are both environmentally and economically sustainable. In many ways, the automotive sector is at the forefront of these trade-offs. Currently, the UK has a mandate that requires 80% of all new cars sold to be EV’s by 2030. However, the new government has announced that it will hold a consultation to consider whether such a requirement should be watered down. Whilst concerns have been expressed that such changes will make it harder for the UK to meets its electrification and climate goals, car makers and trade unions argue that the current target threatens jobs. Manufacturers such as JLR point to the fact that there is not the demand for such a number of EVs in the UK, partly due to the higher electricity prices the UK has compared to most other advanced economies. Moreover, its sales to rapidly growing international markets such as China have declined as China has invested heavily in the production of its own more affordable domestic vehicles. Indeed, Chinese manufacturers, such as BYD, have been growing their market share rapidly in the UK with Chery’s Jaecoo being the third best-selling car in the UK in 2026, leading to it being dubbed the Temu Range Rover.

Taken together, JLR’s redundancy announcement is a stark reminder that attempts to devolve and reindustrialise the UK economy to deliver much needed growth need to acknowledge the challenges and difficult choices involved in relation to protectionist tariff wars and green growth. But perhaps most importantly these policy dilemmas play out on an already highly uneven regional industrial landscape that makes the trade-offs even starker in certain parts of the UK.

By Professor Sarah Hall, Professor of Geography at the University of Cambridge.

The Bayeux Tapestry | Image by: AP Photo / Kin Cheung / Alamy

4 min read23 min

I still can’t quite believe that it’s here. I have had the great privilege of being the UK government special envoy for the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry and have been involved in the intricate negotiations with the French side to transport and exhibit a fragile and very precious 950 year-old embroidery safely and securely. Over recent weeks, I have been in the room accompanying VIP visitors. But this week I went as a visitor, to see it as a million others will in the next 10 months.

The exhibition has been carefully thought out by the British Museum professionals. As you approach the Sainsbury Gallery, you walk back in time. You are first confronted with a group of deadly looking weapons of the period. As the light level lowers, you go up the stairs to a mezzanine with panels on the history. Then, a breathtaking bird’s eye view of the tapestry, bringing home its full 70 metre scale.

Once down the stairs, I found it intensely moving to be up close to this astonishing window onto life in the 11th century. And I mean up close. One of the great achievements of the exhibition is the showcase. Made of the most high-tech glass, it gives robust protection to the tapestry while allowing visitors to get within a few inches of it. The colours glow in the subdued light. The details are arrestingly clear: the facial expressions, the subtle differentiation in clothes and hairstyles, food being cooked and castles and boats being built, the dynamic movement of the horses urging the action forward and, later, the grizzly scenes of fighting and dying.

The colours glow in the subdued light. The details are arrestingly clear

The wealth of detail presents its own problem. If you start by studying every scene, you won’t get to the end in the 40 minutes allocated for each visitor and those behind you will soon get restless. Flow control is going to be an issue. It’s therefore a good idea to do some homework beforehand and decide which scenes you want to focus in on. I recommend The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry by the British Museum curator Michael Lewis and historian Dave Musgrove. 

The tapestry can be enjoyed as a sweeping narrative of knightly derring-do. But there is a lot of politics as well, turning on Duke William’s justification for invading England and wresting the crown from Harold. My favourite scene (number 23) is a moment of high diplomacy. Before the conquest, Harold is in France campaigning alongside William in Bayeux. With William watching intently, Harold stretches out awkwardly, touching two reliquaries.

The tapestry tells us he is making a sacred oath to William. Was it to support William’s claim to the English throne? If so, Harold perjured himself with his coronation on King Edward’s death. The succession was still a touchy subject in England in the late 1060s, when the ladies of Canterbury probably embroidered this masterpiece. So the tapestry is diplomatically silent. 

As an exercise in cultural diplomacy, this loan has already created powerful moments of UK-French unity such as the opening ceremony with the King, President Macron and Prime Minister. The tapestry is having wider impact than any show since Tutankhamun in the 1970s – not surprisingly since 1066 is central to our national story. Its visual cartoon-like language is a gift to social media and appeals directly to young people. The British Museum have an ambitious schools outreach programme and dedicated time for school groups from Britain and France. 

Some experiences surpass expectations. This show is definitely one of those. More tickets will be on sale soon. Do go. It may be a thousand years before you get another chance.

Lord Ricketts is a crossbench peer and former UK Ambassador to France

3 min read12 min

But at Demos, we’ve been showing that politicians can have exactly those conversations with the public, and the public with each other.

This year, we’ve been working with the Home Affairs Select Committee to run public deliberation on immigration across the country, and with MPs to trial new ways of engaging with constituents.

Earlier this week, we launched a report for the Home Affairs Committee based on in-person deliberative workshops on work-related immigration we held in March and May with 89 people across the country, in partnership with the House of Commons and King’s College London. Participants reflected each area’s demographics and views on immigration, enabling the Committee to hear from a cross-section of the public, not just the loudest voices.

Over a weekend, participants heard balanced information from experts, discussed the issues, and developed principles to guide the Home Affairs Committee on work-related immigration. The principles demonstrate how much common ground there really is. Within each workshop, as well as hundreds of miles apart, the same principles independently came up again and again.

We set the tone at the outset of the conversations, asking participants to anticipate disagreement, but to handle it respectfully. The room was almost quiet as the conversations happened in small groups. Participants were genuinely listening to each other, not talking over each other. Almost all (92 per cent) felt they had changed their minds over the course of the workshop as a result of hearing others’ views. How often does that happen on social media or on the doorstep?

MPs ’ offices don’t have the same resources as select committees for these conversations. Our new model of MP-constituent engagement recognises that, but our pilots have shown it’s still possible to have better conversations between MPs and constituents, and constituents with each other.

We are currently partway through our latest pilot in Worcester with Tom Collins MP. We brought together a small group of Worcester constituents who hadn’t previously been in touch with their MP over two Saturday afternoons to discuss how immigration impacts the local area, and how constituents and the MP can work together to strengthen Worcester’s community.

The conversation was open and respectful. Almost all (90 per cent) said they thought differently about something as a result of the discussion. And the conversations brought something rare: hope. Ninety-five per cent of participants are optimistic about what will happen as a result of the conversations.

Now the wider Worcester community gets to have its say in a live online conversation using pol.is. Using bridge-based ranking, pol.is does the opposite of social media: the algorithm rewards consensus, rather than division.

Polarisation on immigration is not inevitable. It is a product of the spaces we create for conversations, and those spaces can be designed differently. When they are, the public can find common ground and help create better policy. This changes the way the public sees policymaking, too: people start to understand how complex immigration policy is and value the opportunity to have a say, and, as a result, feel more positively about the decisions made by policymakers.

After taking part in the workshops for the Committee, participants were more likely to feel the government’s immigration policies address concerns they have about immigration (from 24 per cent before to 44 per cent after), and in Worcester, that their MP listens to constituents and makes decisions based on their input (from 40 per cent to 100 per cent).

Better conversations make better policy with more public buy-in. Get in touch if you’re interested in giving conversations like these a go.

Hana Kapetanovic is lead researcher at Demos

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