The Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, alongside a host of other Oxfordshire-based organisations, recently headed to London to take part in Fusion 22 – a major event that aims to bring greater awareness as to the potential of fusion energy, and there’s good reason as to why the county will be represented so heavily in the capital.
Held at the world-famous Science Museum, event organisers aimed to bring together the 
‘whole fusion industry’ to demonstrate the sector’s incredible potential and how it can be the cornerstone of clean future, as well as highlighting the need for further, innovative collaboration.
It’s only right to say that it is natural for Oxfordshire-based organisations to hold such a presence at the event’s ‘top table’. A glance through the conference’s agenda – made-up of several 45-minute sessions – sees a roll call of high-profile Oxfordshire names who also happen to be some of the world’s most-influential representatives in the development of fusion energy.
The reason for such a presence at a major fusion conference is that Oxfordshire-based companies and experiments are already showing the considerable potential of fusion as a clean, energy source. New, unparalleled successes in its evolvement are happening more-and-more regularly.
Just at the start of this year, the acceleration of fusion became further apparent through results recorded at the Culham Science Centre’s Joint European Torus (JET) facility. It announced that 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy was achieved over a five-second period, with JET saying that this level more than doubled previous records dating back to 1997 – the previous high being 22 megajoules.
In addition – with companies such as Tokamak Energy and First Light Fusion already calling Oxfordshire ‘home’ – it’s no surprise that the Canadian-based industry leader, General Fusion has taken notice of these strengths and last summer announced it will build its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at Culham, further adding to Oxfordshire’s depth and reputation as a ‘powerhouse’ in the development of fusion energy.
With such a dense concentration of fusion strength, it’s very hard to dispute how important Oxfordshire is to creating a genuinely achievable fusion future and – with this in mind – it remains a key role of OxLEP to profile and highlight the strength of the sector in the county and indeed, our wider world-leading innovation ecosystem.
That’s why we were delighted to be a co-founder of the inaugural OX to ZERO conference just last month in central Oxford. It was an event that brought together Oxfordshire’s most-innovative thinkers, investors and entrepreneurs in energy and built upon our own official COP26 conference last autumn, which also highlighted our significant investment potential.
Through both of these high-profile stakeholder events, we were able to further amplify a message that Oxfordshire is one of – if not the key – international driver in creating a clean future for the planet.
OX to ZERO in particular demonstrated the value of showcasing the county’s world-leading potential through partnerships, with the conference delivered alongside co-founders; the University of Oxford – just this month announced the world’s best university for a seventh year running – Harwell Science and Innovation Campus and the Culham-based UKAEA.
Through this partnership, we were able to create a key platform and ‘shout out’ far-and-wide about the huge potential of our stand-out, science and technology assets, clearly underlining why investment into Oxfordshire cannot be ignored.
Our county has a breath-taking history of addressing the world’s most-pressing and pivotal challenges, perhaps most-recently demonstrated through the development of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, at never seen before pace. Greater investment in a sector like fusion can push us all closer – and more quickly – to the goal of a sustainable, global future.
This is where we at OxLEP can play our part.
At the time of reaching its 59 megajoules record, JET spoke about if the ability to maintain fusion for five seconds could be maintained for ‘five minutes and then five hours’, the need to scale-up operations in future machines was key and absolutely necessary – therefore, attracting further UK and international investment is vital to this ambition.
We are taking on this challenge with our many Oxfordshire partners and Government through the Fusion Energy High Potential Opportunity – promoting the investment and trade opportunities that the growing cluster and expertise in Oxfordshire and the UK offers.
Driven by our Oxfordshire Internationalisation Plan to 2025, we will continue to ‘fly the flag’ for Oxfordshire’s incredible fusion potential at events such as Fusion 22.
Thankfully, it’s a story that we are able to tell with amazing clarity and direction thanks to some truly incredible world-leading companies, talent and – probably above all else – dedication to creating a cleaner future for many generations to come.