The Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) was a UK government body that carried out civil research in science and engineering.
On 1 April 2007 CCLRC merged with PPARC to form the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
The CCLRC was created on 1 April 1995 as a non-departmental public body from the laboratories of the previous Science and Engineering Research Council including 1942 staff and an annual turnover of £106 million which had temporarily been controlled by the EPSRC. It operated at three locations:
The Diamond Light Source, was developed by the CCLRC at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and established as an independent company.
The CCLRC was established:
a) to promote high quality scientific and engineering research by providing facilities and technical expertise in support of basic, strategic and applied research programmes;
b) to support the advancement of knowledge and technology, thereby contributing to the economic competitiveness of Our United Kingdom and the quality of life;
c) to provide advice, disseminate knowledge, and promote public understanding in the fields of science, engineering and technology.
Which in practice meant that it administered the UK's large scale facilities for materials and biomolecular research, laser and space science and alternative energy exploration on behalf of the government, the other UK research funding bodies, universities, and corporate research and development.
Over eighty per cent of the funding for the programmes carried out by the CCLRC came through partnership with other UK Research Councils, whilst the remaining twenty per cent came through partnership with industrial and overseas organisations. Some 10,000 researchers are estimated to have used CLRC's facilities and services each year - usually working in close collaboration with CLRC's support scientists and engineers to get the best from the facilities and expertise available. [1]
As well as operating as a single entity, the Council (CCLRC) also operated its own wholly owned trading subsidiary, Central Laboratory Innovation and Knowledge Transfer Limited (CLIK).
By 2006 annual expenditure had nearly doubled since CCLRC's foundation to £199.8 million as the Council's international role expanded to include the payment of the UK's subscriptions to facilities at the ILL and ESRF. [2]
On 1 April 2007 CCLRC merged with PPARC to form the Science and Technology Facilities Council so that a single organisation was responsible for providing UK scientists with access to large scientific facilities in the UK and elsewhere in the world, including CERN, ESA and ESO.
Given the wide breadth of its mission there was plenty of room for the CCLRC staff to promote different activities of the Council. Consequently its branding was always a problem.
Between 1994 and 1995 while the laboratories were temporarily operated by the EPSRC, the abbreviation "DRAL" was used to brand them as distinct from the funding Council. When the CCLRC was first established in 1995 the Director General of Research Councils did not want it to be confused with the funding Councils, so he did not want the abbreviation to include the letters "RC" at the end, but to be simply "CCL" - Council of the Central Laboratories. This only lasted for a few months when the accepted abbreviation became "CLRC" - Central Laboratory of the Research Councils. Since the full name included an extra word a confusion was created as to why the abbreviation appeared to be that of a different name than the actual one. To end this confusion, in 2002 the abbreviation was changed to the complete acronym of "CCLRC".
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron light source science facility located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. Its purpose is to produce intense beams of light whose special characteristics are useful in many areas of scientific research. In particular it can be used to investigate the structure and properties of a wide range of materials from proteins, and engineering components to conservation of archeological artifacts.
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The Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) and its predecessor the Science Research Council (SRC) were the UK agencies in charge of publicly funded scientific and engineering research activities, including astronomy, biotechnology and biological sciences, space research and particle physics, between 1965 and 1994.
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas Computer Laboratory in 1975 to create the Rutherford Lab; then in 1979 with the Appleton Laboratory to form the current laboratory.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to universities in the United Kingdom. EPSRC research areas include mathematics, physics, chemistry, artificial intelligence and computer science, but exclude particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy. Since 2018 it has been part of UK Research and Innovation, which is funded through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The ISIS Neutron and Muon Source is a pulsed neutron and muon source, established 1984 at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It uses the techniques of muon spectroscopy and neutron scattering to probe the structure and dynamics of condensed matter on a microscopic scale ranging from the subatomic to the macromolecular.
The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE) is an astronomical institution located on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh. The site is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The ROE comprises the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) of STFC, the Institute for Astronomy of the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, and the ROE Visitor Centre.
The Doctor of Engineering, or Engineering Doctorate, is a degree awarded on the basis of advanced study and research in engineering and applied sciences. In most countries, it is a terminal research doctorate. A DEng/EngD is equivalent to a PhD in engineering, but different in that it has a solid industrial base and an additional taught element.
George Ernest Kalmus, CBE, FRS is a noted British particle physicist.
The Collaborative Computational Project Number 4 in protein crystallography (CCP4) was set up in 1979 in the United Kingdom to support collaboration between researchers working in software development and assemble a comprehensive collection of software for structural biology. The CCP4 core team is located at the Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH) at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Didcot, near Oxford, UK.
Research Councils UK, sometimes known as RCUK, was a non-departmental public body which coordinated science policy in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2018. It was an umbrella organisation that coordinated the seven separate research councils that were responsible for funding and coordinating academic research for the arts, humanities, science and engineering. In 2018 Research Councils transitioned into UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory based at Sci-Tech Daresbury campus near Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, England. The laboratory began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Harold Wilson. It is operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, part of UK Research and Innovation. As of 2018, it employs around 300 staff, with Professor Susan Smith appointed as director in 2012.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy.
The Atlas Computer Laboratory on the Harwell, Oxfordshire campus shared by the Harwell Laboratory was one of the major computer laboratories in the world, which operated between 1961 and 1975 to provide a service to British scientists at a time when powerful computers were not usually available. The main user population was the UK Universities and some government agencies.
The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a 700-acre science and technology campus in Oxfordshire, England. Over 6,000 people work there in over 240 public and private sector organisations, working across sectors including Space, Clean Energy, Life Sciences and Quantum Computing.
Keith Mason was, until 1 November 2011, the Chief Executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom. He assumed the post on 1 April 2007 after the merger of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), having previously been chief executive of PPARC.
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The National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science was a UK Government establishment that provided equipment and facilities for nuclear research that would otherwise be beyond the financial capability of individual universities and other nuclear research establishments. It operated from 1957 to 1965.
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