Building science bridges

University of Brighton nuclear scientists are building bridges with colleagues in Africa.

Professor Alison Bruce, Head of the nuclear physics research group at the University, led a workshop in Cape Town with scientists from South Africa, Botswana, Cameroon, Tanzania and Nigeria.

Professor Bruce said: “We discussed collaboration and how to develop capacity building activities in topics and techniques in nuclear structure physics and in nuclear science.”

The workshop was held at iThemba LABS, South Africa’s National Research Facility, and was funded by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).

Professor Bruce, Deputy Head of the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics (Research and Enterprise), received a grant of £30,000 to support the attendance of eight UK scientists from the universities of Brighton, Manchester, Surrey, West of Scotland and  the UK’s National Physical Laboratory and the Daresbury scientific research laboratory.

Eugenio Gamba, University PhD student, attended along with two University alumni, Professor Nico Orce from South Africa’s University of the Western Cape and Dr Frank Browne, a postdoctoral researcher at the RIKEN research institute in Japan.

Professor Bruce said: “The workshop focused on the application of advanced digital techniques and radiation detection, including detailed discussion of techniques for measuring the lifetimes of nuclear levels and of environmental measurements and metrology.

“It concluded with a discussion on how to develop existing collaborations, building new ones and the transfer of knowledge.

“The workshop was highly successful and we plan to bid for a larger grant at the next GCRF call.”