Accelerate.EU, a collaborative European initiative, envisions revolutionising theranostics through innovative targeted alpha-therapies (TATs) using astatine-211. A unique consortium will combine diagnostics with potent cytotoxic effects of alpha-particles to enable precise tumour radiation while minimising side effects. Accelerate.EU's core objectives are: Innovate theranostic solutions based on therapeutic and diagnostic pairs for hard-to-treat cancers, exploring the potential for simultaneous preclinical studies and early-phase clinical trials (i.e. co-clinical approach) to showcase the enhanced benefits of these approaches for cancer patients. • Establish a robust and sustainable EU manufacturing and treatment infrastructure for astatine-211, ensuring compliance with quality assurance and regulatory guidelines while streamlining the supply chain across the EU. • Produce comprehensive educational and training content to support the deployment of theranostic solutions, fostering knowledge dissemination, transfer and longevity/durability Accelerate.EU strategically develop TATs to address unmet clinical needs in pancreatic, breast, and brain cancers. The co-clinical approach, incorporating concurrent clinical and preclinical studies, adds a breakthrough dimension to theranostics. Accelerate.EU pioneers 211At-theranostics establishing a resilient EU scale-up production network and empowering healthcare providers to offer TATs to cancer patients. Through the collaboration of experts from academia, industry and regulatory agencies, Accelerate.EU's implements a visionary approach addressing clinical gaps, accelerating TAT theranostic development, supporting EU global leadership, with primary target to improve patient outcomes for lasting impact on EU cancer care.

The University of York (UoY) nuclear applications group is presently running a one-year GCRF project called NuTRAIN with University of Western Cape (UWC) and University of Zululand (UZ) in South Africa. They are transferring expertise in working with scintillators and silicon photomultipliers which can be applied to applications in environmental monitoring, experimental nuclear physics and medicine. Six South African students have visited York to receive training and funds have been provided to establish small detector development laboratories at UWC and UZ. The present MANDELA project intends to build on this initial training in the form of a genuine distributed project to develop the components for a new and inexpensive type of positron emission tomography (PET) scanner for medical imaging. This will be based on plastic scintillator and make use of a newly developed UK-based supply chain for plastic scintillator established by LabLogic, a company based in Sheffield close by to UoY. Students in South Africa will be trained to carry out GEANT4 simulations - a method that allows the response of radiation detectors to be studied and hence, novel detectors can be designed. Importantly, UoY will provide these simulations "in the cloud" avoiding the need for high performance computers based locally. The simulations could even be run on a web browser or on a smartphone. Based on the simulations, prototype detectors will be fabricated. Based on training received at York, the SA students will evaluate these and determine the best silicon photomultipliers and fibre optic configurations for scintillation light detection. The MANDELA project will provide funding to upgrade their detector laboratory so they can undertake the necessary work. The project will lead to a solid design for the basic components of a novel PET scanner which can be pursued through a further collaborative R&D phase or move rapidly to commercialisation.

Organic ion exchange resins are utilised in many different areas of the civil nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium ore concentration and refinement and chemical control of coolant water composition in light water reactors and spent fuel storage ponds, to decontamination of radioactive element-containing effluents arising from fuel reprocessing and nuclear decommissioning operations. These materials are effective "sponges" for a wide range of radioactive elements, hence their widespread use. The UK has stockpiled approximately 600 m3 of spent (i.e., used) ion exchange resins (SIERs), which require disposal, and continues to produce between 2.5 to 13 m3 per year. The disposal of SIERs is problematic; there are several key issues, which include: 1. The 14C inventory of the materials. This isotope has a half life of 5,730 years and is incorporated as 14CO32- and H14CO3-, which, if allowed to enter the environment are extremely mobile and biologically available. Release of 14C gas in a disposal environment provides a rapid 14C migration pathway to the biosphere; 2. The degradation of SIERs in a disposal environment through radioactive decay processes produces organic complexant molecules, which may facilitate rapid transport of radioactive elements from SIERs to the biosphere; 3. The degradation of SIERs in a storage environment may also yield chemically toxic gases such as benzene, phenol and ammonia, which make storage extremely problematic. These issues require the SIERs to be treated so as to meet waste acceptance criteria for disposal. This is typically achieved by destruction using thermal or chemical processes. In this proposal, we aim to develop a promising chemical treatment route for the destruction of SIERs, known as wet oxidation. Wet oxidation has been successfully trialled elsewhere for the destruction of non-radioactive surrogates for SIERs, however, the specific methods previously utilised do not give rise to by-product residues that are amenable to immobilisation in a material suitable for disposal in the UK. We propose two novel approaches to wet oxidation processes that will not only generate by-products more suitable for immobilisation, but that also have a greater destruction efficiency than those previously trialled. Furthermore, we will develop and optimise tailored cement, ceramic and glass waste forms for the immobilisation of SIER degradation. We will provide a robust scientific underpinning of the chemical speciation and local distribution of radionuclides in SIERs and the immobilisation matrices we develop, and understand their behaviour in disposal environments, to support the safe and timely disposal of SIER wastes. A significant novelty of this research is the verification of our new treatment and immobilisation methods for SIERs using real radioactive materials. After optimisation of the processes described above using inactive SIERs, we will apply them to real radioactive SIER from the UK decommissioning programme. If successful, this work will be a significant step towards demonstrating an effective treatment option for the resin, allowing early site termination of a significant hazard.

Most electrical equipment requires a power supply which usually incorporates a magnetic transformer to provide safety isolation and to step up or step down the input voltage. Piezoelectric transformers (PTs) offer an exciting alternative to conventional transformers particularly in applications requiring high power density, low electromagnetic interference and high temperature operation. Their widespread adoption is hindered, however, by the need for power supply designers to possess knowledge and training in both materials science and power electronics, combined expertise that is rarely found in industry or even academia. This lacking knowledge base represents a real impediment for power supply manufacturers who may wish to adopt PT technology and consequently PTs have only seen marginal market penetration. The project addresses these issues by producing a multi-physics design framework which provides abstraction from the fundamental science and therefore allows the design engineer to focus on the overall system design. The framework converts a high-level power supply specification into a PT power supply solution through a series of circuit and materials based transformations. An optimisation process (using evolutionary computing and finite element analysis) produces a fully characterised final design. The output of this process includes a circuit design and a "recipe" for the piezoelectric transformer, including materials and construction details presented in a format suitable for manufacture. The framework will be encapsulated in a user-friendly software design tool and validated against real-world power supply applications suggested by the project's industrial partners thereby ensuring the relevance of the research. The research, which will transcend the traditional barriers between electrical engineering and materials science, has an investigatory team with expertise in both areas. As well as developing a framework, the research will develop novel piezoelectric materials particularly suited to high temperature operation, finding promise in a number of application areas including aerospace, oil/gas exploration, electric vehicles and for remote monitoring in harsh environments. Additionally, the need for environmentally damaging lead-based PTs will be diminished through the development of new materials which comply with Restriction on Hazardous Substances 2016. The research programme will culminate in an open workshop where industry and academic researchers can learn about PT power supplies and evaluate the design tool for themselves. To ensure that the research remains industrially relevant we have partnered with several leading companies who will provide expertise and commercial drive and in return they will receive proof-of-concept power supplies ready for commercialisation.

It is an exceptional time for discoveries in particle physics and particle astrophysics and the research we wish to conduct in this STFC consolidated grant programme at Sheffield is at the heart of this action. Foremost recently has been the discovery by ATLAS of a Higgs boson particle. Members of the group led and helped to develop the key 4-lepton analysis upon which the discovery was based. We will now use our expertise to measure carefully the properties of the new particle to establish whether it is the Higgs boson predicted by theory, or something else. We will also search for squark and gluino particles predicted by supersymmetry theory, which will be the main target of the next, higher energy, run of the LHC. Preparing for the future, we will expand our role in the ATLAS upgrade programme to build key components of a new ATLAS tracker. Our involvement in the T2K experiment in Japan also greatly benefited from confirmation of a non-zero third neutrino mixing angle, a result fundamental to our understanding of the neutrino. The group's respected work in neutrino analyses for T2K, particularly of so-called charge current and neutral current events, will continue along with international responsibilities for data management and for the critical light injection calibration system. However, bolstered by the exciting new results we will now also accelerate participation in next generation long baseline neutrino experiment for CP violation aimed to unravel the mystery of antimatter in the Universe, notably using LBNE/F in the US and Hyper-K in Japan. For these our particular focus will be on detector construction. For the precursor LAr1-ND experiment at Fermilab we plan to construct the central Anode Plane Array for the detector, while working also on our pioneering liquid argon R&D. We will also establish novel detector prototypes at the new CERN-based neutrino platform and for LBNE/F itself. Closely related here will be work on the MICE experiment towards a potential future neutrino factory, plus related R&D on high power particle beam targets for future neutrino beams and experiments. For particle astrophysics we plan to expand work on gravitation waves, through specialist noise analysis for Advanced Ligo, and develop new effort on dark matter, thought to comprise 90% of the Universe. There is strong motivation here because the US LUX experiment recently produced a step-change in sensitivity to dark matter particles. We will complete leading analysis for the EDELWEISS experiment and then lead key simulations for the upcoming LZ experiment in the US. Following our pioneering work on detectors with sensitivity to galactic signatures, the group will also lead analysis and construction tasks for the DRIFT direction sensitive experiment at Boulby and the new DM-ICE250 NaI experiment, which US collaborators recently agreed will be hosted at Boubly. DM-ICE will seek a new annual modulation signal for dark matter. These experiments are all searching WIMP particles, but we will also expand study of axions as a potential alternative. Meanwhile, our generic detector R&D and knowledge exchange programme is vital to underpinning the group's expertise and skills-base. It benefits from our historic links to the Boulby deep underground science laboratory but critically now involves multiple industrial and non-STFC projects. Noteworthy aims now will be to complete our DECC-funded programme on muon tomography for climate change, develop new instrumentation for radon assay, spin-out work on novel motor control electronics via a new patent and continue development of novel welding technology. It is interesting that our long-standing efforts to develop liquid argon technology for neutrino physics are also relevant to medical imaging requirements. We plan to complete a new prototype instrument, building on a recent MRC award. This all reflects the group's commitment to contributing to societal and impact agendas.