Dounreay man gives insight into nuclear heritage at international congress in Montreal
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Work being done to safeguard the UK’s civil nuclear heritage has been highlighted by Dounreay’s information and knowledge manager at an international event in Canada.
James Gunn presented a paper at the 18th International Congress of the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH), held in the University of Quebec and Montreal in Montreal city centre.
The event was attended by more than 300 people from around the world.
James’s paper covered the heritage activities he has managed at Dounreay since 2010 and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) heritage initiative started in 2017.
James, who is the acting NDA heritage officer, participated in a session entitled “Evaluating the global heritage of oil and energy production”.
The session’s question-and-answer panel included Miles Oglethorpe, of Historic Environment Scotland, the TICCIH president.
He said: “James described the significant efforts that are being made to safeguard the UK’s civil nuclear heritage for future generations and there was great interest shown by the international audience of industrial heritage experts.
"The session was very successful, with great feedback.”
James said: “Nuclear heritage is a relatively new discipline in the field of industrial heritage and there were quite a few questions. However, I was surprised by the level of interest in my Dounreay sphere tie – I had three requests to take a photograph of it!
"The conference was a great networking opportunity with very experienced experts and academics from a wide variety of industries. Nuclear heritage is beginning to attract lots of attention from historians, researchers and museums.
“The NDA information governance manager Michelle Donoghue also attended and she helped to answer the questions on strategic issues and the NDA’s future ambitions for nuclear heritage.
“I took the opportunity to visit the physics museum at Montreal’s prestigious McGill University, which has an exhibition of the equipment used by Ernest Rutherford when he was a professor there in the late 19th century. He is generally regarded as the father of nuclear physics, with many early atomic discoveries.”
