Strategic priority one

Deliver world-class research and innovation in nuclear science and technology

ANSTO has a proud history of success in fundamental and applied research. ANSTO's unique strength lies in research in interactions and phenomena at the molecular, atomic and sub-atomic scales and relating this to complex physical and biological systems.

ANSTO will focus on its strengths including:

• Materials Engineering research, with a focus on behaviour of materials in extreme environments for application in next generation energy systems and national security. ANSTO has applied research in support of commercial opportunities in nuclear waste management.

• Environmental research, with an emphasis on the application of nuclear methods to understand past climate events, the sustainability of groundwater systems and assessing human impacts on environmental systems.

• ANSTO LifeSciences research and innovation in radionuclide and radiopharmaceutical development and novel imaging techniques to support a broad set of life sciences disciplines. 

• Neutron scattering research to support developments in diverse fields such as plastics, minerals, engineering, pharmaceuticals, electronics and biology. 

Where appropriate, ANSTO will collaborate and partner with other Australian science and technology organisations to ensure that there is a national approach to researching major themes in key priority areas.

Strategic collaboration will be critical to ensure the optimisation of scarce resources, to maximise the contribution of complementary skill sets and to support work on landmark projects.

We will recognise our success by:

• Achieving high impact research outcomes from projects including use of accelerator systems in studying radiation and climate phenomena
• Generating new sources of revenue from successful creation of new ventures and technology transfer
• The depth and impact of collaborative research outcomes