Wednesday 11 March 2026

By Gareth Headdock, Chief Science and Technology Officer and Deputy CEO, United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) 

This week is British Science week and, for 2026, the theme is curiosity: what’s your question?  

It’s a question that, for me, starts close to home. When I speak with many colleagues at UKNNL about their career journeys, I hear a remarkably consistent thread. Some came via physics, others through chemistry, materials science, engineering or computing. However, what drew them in, whatever their discipline, was a fundamental curiosity about how things work and, more importantly, how we can make technology work better.  

When you consider what it takes to keep a nuclear power station running safely, or to develop the next generation of reactors that will power Britain’s clean energy future, you realise that no single discipline can do it alone. On any given day at UKNNL, physicists are working alongside materials scientists, chemists are collaborating with engineers, and data specialists are supporting safety case analysts. While the discipline may be different, we are all working towards the same goals – delivering nuclear outcomes for government and supporting the growth of the nuclear sector.  

This diversity of expertise is our greatest strength and got me thinking about a bigger question. If this is how science works best within a single organisation, surely the same principle must hold across the broader research landscape? How do all the different branches of science, not just within nuclear, but across every field that matters to Britain’s future, come together to deliver the best for the UK? 

The answer lies in bringing research organisations together in a structured, purposeful way – precisely what the National Research Organisations (NRO) Group, which UKNNL is a proud member of, represents. 

An alliance for British science 

The NRO Group unites more than 35around 40 of the UK’s leading research centres, from the Met Office to the Francis Crick Institute. These are organisations whose principal purpose is to perform both curiosity-driven and focused, mission-led research. Together, they span almost every discipline: atmospheric science, marine biology, nuclear technology, genomics, cybersecurity and more. 

What the NRO Group recognises is that the biggest breakthroughs happen at the boundaries between disciplines. Climate science needs oceanographers and atmospheric physicists working together. The clean energy transition needs nuclear engineers and materials scientists to meet our net zero commitments. No single institution can hold all the necessary expertise to solve society’s biggest challenges – but a trusted alliance of national research organisations can. 

As Science Minister Lord Vallance said: “There has never been a better time for the UK’s research institutes and public research bodies to pull together. By aligning their capabilities to deliver maximum impact, the NRO Group will be a key part of our efforts to ensure that science and technology benefits everyone.” 

What this means for UKNNL  

For UKNNL, membership of the NRO Group is a statement of intent about how we believe we can serve the country as the UK’s lead civil national laboratory for nuclear fission. 

Our mission is twofold: to enable and deliver nuclear outcomes for government, and to support the growth of the UK nuclear sector. Delivering on that mission requires us to be deeply connected to the wider scientific community. 

The NRO Group gives us that connection in a meaningful way. It creates the governance and strategic alignment that allows national research organisations to speak with a unified, authoritative voice to government. It ensures that world-class scientific insight consistently informs decisions on the issues that matter most: growth, security, net zero and the wellbeing of people across the UK. 

Curiosity without borders 

Curiosity doesn’t respect disciplinary boundaries. A researcher developing advanced fuels may draw on insights from chemistry, engineering and computational modelling simultaneously. 

The NRO Group creates the conditions for that kind of cross-disciplinary curiosity to flourish at a national scale. It is a forum in which a nuclear laboratory can find unexpected common ground with an institute studying plant biology, or a centre focused on oceanography. And in that common ground, new questions emerge that none of us would have thought to ask alone. 

That, for me, is the answer to how all the different branches of science come together. Not through accident or proximity, but through deliberate collaboration, through alliances like the NRO Group that create the structures, the trust and the shared purpose that allow science to do what it does best. 

As British Science Week asks us all what question drives our curiosity, my answer is clear: how do we use the best of British science, working together, to deliver for everyone across the UK? At UKNNL, we are proud to be part of the NRO Group to connect the dots between organisations that carry out curiosity-driven scientific research and deliver societal impact. 

Find out more about the group at https://nrogroup.org/