Abstract: The Cockcroft Institute (CI) is a partnership between the Universities of Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, and Strathclyde and the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The core membership comprises the accelerator physics and engineering groups of the partner universities and the STFC Accelerator Science and Technology Centre (ASTeC) at Daresbury Laboratory. The CI is the de facto national center for accelerator research and development (R&D) in the United Kingdom. With its very strong university-supported backbone closely coupled to ASTeC, comprising nearly 250 faculty, professional accelerator staff, postdoctoral research associates, administraive staff, and Ph.D. students, it is probably one of the largest of its kind in the world, delivering world class R&D in radio-frequency (RF) based systems and novel methods of acceleration with major contributions to the realization of national and international accelerator facilities. The CI’s cross-cutting applications program allows this expertise to be used to address global challenges in health, security, energy, manufacturing, and the environment and to train the next generation of accelerator experts in areas where there is a recognized international skills shortage. We are also inspiring school students and the public through our extensive public engagement programs.

The aims and objectives of the Cockcroft Institute will be outlined. This will provide an understanding of how we see ourselves contributing to global activities in the development and application of particle accelerators, colliders, and intense light sources, as well as training some of the next generation of accelerator scientists and engineers. An assortment of research highlights from our current program will also be presented. This includes work on conventional RF-based machines as well as novel acceleration techniques involving laser-plasma interactions and THz-dielectric structures.