Yorkshire the focal point for nuclear industry

Up to a dozen stations will be built in the UK in the coming years, at a cost of 40bn.

The NAMRC will help manufacturing companies join the supply chain for these contracts and compete for nuclear tenders worldwide.

In Yorkshire, about 40 companies are active – or have strong potential – in the civil nuclear supply chain. This number is expected to grow as the supply chain develops.

NAMRC's backers, the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester, are working to develop links with these companies and will be holding networking events to promote opportunities.

Founding partners of the project are big-hitters in the industry and include nuclear reactor providers Areva and Westinghouse, power systems provider Rolls-Royce and steel engineering group Sheffield Forgemasters. EDF Energy, the UK's largest power provider, the Nuclear Industry Association, the trade body, and the National Metals Technology Centre, are also supporting the NAMRC.

The 25m facility, which is being built at the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) at Rotherham, will carry out research on areas including large-scale laser cutting and welding using robotics, machine-tool optimisation, large-scale demonstrators and virtual manufacturing and assembly.

Professor Keith Ridgway, one of the founders, said: "We are trying to encourage and support British companies to get a better share of the supply chain.

"You have to do that by being competitive on a global scale When the global developments in nuclear come on, they can be in a position to supply into that.

The NAMRC, announced last year by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, will be in temporary accommodation from April 1. The new facility, designed by Bond Bryan Architects, is scheduled for completion by December 2011.

Five years after it opened, the 24m Advanced Manufacturing Park is just one third full. Some landlords may be worried, but its backers have turned away prospective tenants because they don't fit the profile.

The number of resident businesses could double in the next year, according to managers, who are in talks with "eight or nine" companies about setting up operations at the AMP, which is based at Catcliffe.

More announcements should be expected soon, said Joe Anwyl, the head of business development at the AMP. He told the Yorkshire Post: "We are looking for the right businesses, the right advanced manufacturing businesses for the AMP.

"We are under pressure to deliver from Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency, and the commercial developers, but we don't want to fill the park with average companies. We want to fill it with world-leading manufacturing companies. It is probably the leading advanced manufacturing park in the world."

The eight or nine companies include large and small businesses, which are all in the advanced manufacturing field. They are in the nuclear, aviation and oil and gas sectors, said Mr Anwyl. They would join names like Dormer, CTI, Struers and TWI, with bases at the park. The Advanced Manufacturing Park is also home to the University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), which boasts partners including Boeing, Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Messier-Dowty and Mori Seiki.

The AMRC offers a "sandpit environment" to its members, in which they can develop new technology for materials-forming, metal-working and castings for the aviation industry.

Prof Ridgway, one of the founders, has compared the AMRC to Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works project, which was responsible for developing some of the manufacturer's most innovative aircraft designs from the 1930s onwards in an atmosphere free from bureaucracy and convention.

Best of British – In South Yorkshire

Dormer, the historic Sheffield rotary cutting tools company now owned by Swedish engineering giant Sandvik, has eight or nine manufacturing plants around the world but chose to locate its research and development facility at the AMP.

Nick Garner, the managing director, said: "The brand of British made or British designed and produced globally is a lot stronger than people give it credit for.

As a toolmaker and supplier to aerospace and automotive sectors, the company can be seen as a barometer of industrial demand.

Mr Garner said: "The UK has picked up nicely in the first two months of this year. The rest of Europe is still fairly flat. Eastern Europe and Russia are going like trains again. China never dropped."