Lancaster Professor Malcolm Joyce has been appointed to a prestigious role advising the UK government and devolved administrations on how to manage radioactive waste.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) provides independent scrutiny and advice to the UK Government and devolved administrations, on the long-term management of radioactive wastes.

Professor Joyce is one of 12 experts in different aspects of radioactive waste management who are both appointed by, and report to ministers from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Scottish and Welsh governments and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs of Northern Ireland.

He holds a Chair in Nuclear Engineering at Lancaster University and is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Nuclear Institute. He was Editor on the Elsevier journal Progress in Nuclear Energy (2012-2022) and is currently Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science and the European Journal of Physics N (EPJ-N). He is a member of the UK Government's Nuclear Industry Research Advisory Board (NIRAB), a member of the National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF) management group and a member of the UKAEA Programme Advisory Committee.

He was awarded the James Watt medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in 2014 and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2016. He wrote: 'Nuclear Engineering: A Conceptual Guide to Nuclear Power', published by Butterworth-Heinemann in 2017.

The purpose of the Committee is to give independent advice and informed scrutiny of the available evidence to the UK government and devolved administration ministers on the management of radioactive waste, arising from civil and, where relevant, defence nuclear programmes, including storage and disposal.

The committee members aim to provide independent evidence-based advice to the UK government and devolved administrations, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Nuclear Waste Services on proposals, plans and programmes to deliver geological disposal, together with robust interim storage, for the UK’s higher activity radioactive waste.