By Professor Declan Diver

THE Ardeer peninsula in North Ayrshire once played a key role in Scotland’s industry as home to ICI Ardeer, a chemical plant established by Alfred Nobel that was central to the local economy.

In the coming decades, Ardeer could be restored as a centre of cutting-edge industry and a pioneer of zero-carbon power generation.

It’s one of five sites in the final stages of consideration to play host to the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP), a UK Government programme to build a prototype fusion power plant.

As with any large-scale investment in innovation, STEP will bring with it a wide range of benefits for the local community, particularly in training, apprenticeships and job creation.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority expect that the construction of the plant will require the support of around 3,500 skilled jobs, and up to 1,000 engineers, technicians and support staff once the plant is operational. As many as 5% of those jobs will be apprenticeships and graduate positions.

The west of Scotland is home to a remarkable convergence of excellent higher and further education institutions. Together, they are ideally-placed to support STEP with the skills and training the project will require. In doing so, they will also help create rewarding careers for young people in the emerging field of fusion power generation.

As a plasma physicist and the convenor of the Fusion Forward (Ardeer) consortium, which put together the bid to bring STEP to Ardeer, I’ve been working closely with my colleagues at colleges and universities to ensure students will receive relevant training and education they’ll need.

We’ve created a unique cross-sector advisory panel which brings together representatives from the University of Glasgow, Strathclyde University, the University of the West of Scotland and Glasgow Caledonian University with their counterparts from Ayrshire College, City of Glasgow College, Glasgow Clyde College, Glasgow Kelvin College and West College Scotland. Together, these institutions represent a pool of around 190,000 students, all within easy commuting distance of Ardeer.

Along with support from Skills Development Scotland, the panel has already agreed a framework to coordinate and guide the creation, evolution and delivery of new courses designed to meet STEP’s education and training needs, from apprenticeships all the way to PhDs. We’re also planning to involve a wider group of local authorities and relevant employers in our future decision-making process.

We believe that this is the first time that cooperation between Scottish further and higher education institutions at this scale has been agreed – a testament to STEP’s potential as a driver of new ways to approach education and training. Indeed, tomorrow (April 27), we’ll welcome a UKAEA delegation to Ardeer to discuss establishing an apprenticeship facility to complement STEP on the peninsula.

In agreeing to share resources and maximise opportunities, the panel have laid the groundwork for collaboration that could easily be extended to respond to any large-scale industry initiative. So while we wait in hopeful anticipation of the final decision on STEP, we’re looking ahead to how we can further develop the world-leading skills and training hub we already have here in the west of Scotland.

Professor Declan Diver, of the University of Glasgow’s School of Physics & Astronomy, is convenor of the Fusion Forward (Ardeer) consortium, which is supported by North Ayrshire Council and NPL Group