News - The Cockcroft Institute

October 23, 2026

30 Years of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: Training Researchers for Europe and Beyond

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are turning 30. Since their launch in 1996, the European Union’s flagship program for doctoral and postdoctoral training has supported more than 150,000 researchers worldwide, including 23 Nobel Prize winners. What started as a small…

October 7, 2026

Faraday Cup Award celebrates two decades of world-class beam diagnostics research at the Cockcroft Institute

The international Beam Gas Curtain (BGC) collaboration between the University of Liverpool, CERN and GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research has received the prestigious Faraday Cup Award for the development of a pioneering beam diagnostic for CERN’s Large Hadron…

October 5, 2026

Three PhD successes highlight diversity of accelerator research at CI

The Cockcroft Institute is celebrating three recent PhD successes, highlighting the diverse research being undertaken by its students across accelerator physics, beam instrumentation, computational methods and beam dynamics. Monty during the Berlin Science Week. Montague (Monty) King, Finlay Gunneberg and…

October 2, 2026

Cockcroft Institute Researchers Showcase Advanced Accelerator Research at Channeling 2026

Researchers from the Cockcroft Institute (CI) made a strong contribution to the 11th International Conference on Charged & Neutral Particles Channeling Phenomena (Channeling 2026), held in Brindisi, Italy, from 20–25 September 2026. Organised by the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN)and theEuropean Organization for…

A poster with drawings of accelerator concepts

September 30, 2026

ASTeC welcomes A-Level students for work experience week

In June 2026, ASTeC hosted its group work experience week welcoming 12 A-level students to Daresbury Laboratory. The students worked with several specialist groups across ASTeC to learn about particle accelerator science, and the work that goes into designing, building…

September 23, 2026

CI expertise highlighted at IBIC 2026

The 15th International Beam Instrumentation Conference (IBIC 2026) was held in Whistler, Canada this year. Dedicated to exploring the physics and engineering challenges of beam diagnostic and measurement techniques for particle accelerators worldwide it attracted almost 170 delegates from all over…

September 21, 2026

Particle-beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration over the last four decades

Forty years after its introduction in 1985, beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) has evolved from a theoretical concept and simulation study into one of the most exciting technologies for the future of particle accelerators. Over the years, new concepts have…

September 18, 2026

CI member awarded IOP Fellowship

We are delighted to announce that Cockcroft Institute expert Lee Jones (STFC/ASTeC) has been awarded a Fellowship by the Institute of Physics (IOP) in recognition of his work over the past two decades at the forefront of particle accelerator technology.…

September 14, 2026

Laser beating opens a new route to compact particle accelerators

CI researchers have shown how two laser pulses can combine inside a microscopic tube to generate powerful accelerating fields. Their findings suggest a way to build smaller particle accelerators and bring their capabilities to more research laboratories. The study, by…