Scotland Study Tour

Title

2004 Study Tour Visit to Rosyth Naval Dockyards

Vladimir Starosotnikov, Minatom meets with Antonia White, Defence Diversification Agency at Rosyth Naval Dockyard during 2004 Study Tour

Objectives

• Further familiarize representatives from Russian Closed City Administrations and Institutes about economic restructuring strategies, processes, and practices in the UK.
• Highlight all aspects of the processes related to the conversion of defence and nuclear installations and related enterprises, the clean-up and reclamation of sites previously devoted to the defence or other heavy industry sectors, as well as the mechanisms established by public and private organizations to promote high-technology innovation, small businesses creation and skills training.
• Demonstrate how decommissioning can become a means of job creation.

Summary

Regions in Scotland and Northern England have been successfully addressing many of the same problems representatives from Russia's Closed Nuclear Cities are currently addressing. The UK regions faced, and continue to face, closure of major governmental and private institutions that support local economies. The closures result in major job redundancies, undermine the health of local economies, and much of the land involved at the sites was/is contaminated. Local governments have had to develop new economic plans emphasizing public-private sector partnerships, support the growth of small business, attract high-technology business, provide new skills and business development training, and implement creative programmes to reclaim contaminated sights.

Delegation members studied a variety of economic development models used to address large-scale job redundancies from the closure and/or downsizing of defence nuclear installations, as well as heavy industrial sites. Meetings throughout the week emphasized the importance of building public-private partnerships and the ability to turn decommissioning into an opportunity for communities to promote sustainable economic regeneration. During the week, Russian Study Tour participants visited:

• Deregulated defence and nuclear sites
• Commercial technology oriented companies
• National, regional and local authorities involved in the transition, including regional and local economic development agencies
• Educational and training institutions supporting innovation
• Organizations devoted to promoting innovation in Scotland and Northern England

The main themes emphasized by meeting hosts throughout the week included:

• Large scale nuclear sites can be successfully transitioned to private sector management and eventually private sector ownership.
• Large scale industrial site regeneration can be successfully managed through decommissioning and the revitalization supports sustainable economic development in a region.
• Nuclear site decommissioning should be seen as a new opportunity for economic development, not as the end of an era.
• Large scale job redundancies at nuclear and industrial sites can be successfully managed with support from public sector economic development agencies, regional and local governments and private companies. Employees can learn new business and technical skills and become more commercially oriented in their approach to work.
• Approaches to job creation and economic development change over time.

Cost

Duration

Beneficiary

• Siberian Chemical Kombinat, Seversk
• All Russian Scientific and Research Institute for Technical Physics, Snezhinsk
• All Russian Scientific and Research Institute for Experimental Physics, Sarov
• Mining and Chemical Kombinat, Zheleznogorsk
• City Administration officials from Zheleznogorsk, Seversk, and Ozersk
• Representatives from the Departments of Conversion, International Relations, and Protection of Information and Nuclear Materials, Federal Agency for Atomic Energy

Project Consultant

Project Director

Project Manager

Partners\Subcontractors

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