The DIAMOND (Decommissioning, Immobilisation and Management of Nuclear waste for Disposal) University research consortium was formed in response to a call for proposals issued in August 2007 by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council on the topic of Nuclear Waste Management and Decommissioning. Led by the University of Leeds, the consortium members include Imperial College London, Loughborough University, University of Manchester, University of Sheffield and University College London. By combining the strengths of these six universities, each with a proven track record in delivering world-leading research to the UK's nuclear industry, we believe that the consortium offers a breath of expertise unrivalled in the UK.

Figure 1: Schematic representation of research areas to be addressed by the DIAMOND university consortium.

Many of the technological challenges that lie ahead in decommissioning legacy nuclear plant and provision of long term waste storage are highly complex and will require new, multidisciplinary approaches to achieve innovative solutions. We believe that diversiy of expertise leads to significant debate and idea generation and will spawn new initiatives as the consortium moves forward. DIAMOND aims to deliver a high quality research and training programme, through development of new collaborations with stakeholders across the nuclear industry. Our ethos is to consolidate and expand academic nuclear waste resesarch capacity in the UK whilst maintaining relevance to current and future needs of the industry.

Figure 2: Matrix representing relationships between workpackages and cross cutting themes.