Darren McClure, a senior engineer in Atkins' nuclear business, has accepted an invitation to sit on the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) expert panel on energy.

Since joining Atkins' nuclear business in 2008, Darren has played an active role with most of Atkins' major UK nuclear clients including EDF, Sellafield and NNB GenCo. His contributions to the ICE expert panel on energy will focus on the nuclear industry.

Darren said: "I'm very pleased to take up a seat on the panel and I'm really looking forward to contributing insight from my own experience, as well as bringing Atkins' specialist knowledge to the table."

The role of ICE's expert panels is:
• To act as a focal point for knowledge, learning and industry best practice, and to share this information with members of the institution
• To act as the technical authority and voice of ICE
• To provide sound engineering advice to government and other public bodies responsible for policy
• To ensure that the members of ICE have sufficient capacity and capability to meet the future challenges facing the profession (through commissioning training, conferences and seminars, for example). Expert panels identify industry trends and ensure that civil engineers are using the most appropriate and modern tools for the job. One example of this is building information modelling (BIM), which barely existed five years ago, but has now revolutionised parts of the industry.

Chris Ball, managing director of Atkins' nuclear business commented: "This is an exciting opportunity for Darren to take a leading role in our industry and everyone at Atkins is proud of what he has achieved. His experience across the nuclear sector puts him in a great position to offer expert advice to the ICE panel."

For more information:

Paul Childs
PR manager, Energy

paul.childs@atkinsglobal.com
+44 207 121 2828

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Notes to editors:

Atkins

Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com ) is one of the world's leading design, engineering and project management consultancies*, employing some 18,000 people across the UK, North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Europe. Our people's breadth and depth of expertise and drive to ask why has allowed us to plan, design and enable some of the world's most complex and time critical projects.

*15th largest global design firm (Engineering News-Record 2014) and the third largest multidisciplinary consultancy in Europe (Svensk Teknik och Design 2013).

Recent projects from across the Group:

Atkins is working across urban regeneration, master planning, national energy programmes, major transport schemes, water and environment projects - applying smart design solutions on projects including:

  • Central Planning Office - helping to co-ordinate Qatar's National 2030 Vision for world class transport infrastructure, which will bring major benefits to the economy;
  • The London 2012 Games infrastructure transformation - as technical advisor to London's boroughs as the Olympic Park moves into its legacy configuration as a follow-on role to our work as the Games' official engineering and design provider;
  • 's peaceful nuclear new build programme - providing technical assurance to lenders backing the United Arab Emirates' most ambitious energy infrastructure projects;
  • North Sea and Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms - extending the operational life of critical oil and gas platforms to allow cost-efficient and safe recovery of fuel sources from mature fields;
  • offshore wind alliance - provision of expert engineering and design support for the UK's biggest offshore wind alliance with Scottish and Southern Energy;
  • - designing the Central London twin tunnels and station architecture for Europe's biggest civil engineering scheme which will see tunnels passing beneath 470 listed buildings and critical infrastructure;
  • Railway - providing multidisciplinary design expertise on the 1,200 km Rail network which will passenger and freight transport in the ;
  • Denmark - providing signalling expertise on the first countrywide installation of an train control and management system in Denmark;
  • Hong Kong-- Bridge - lead consultant on this integral part of the new Hong Kong link road scheme which will significantly boost land connectivity in the region;
  • Sixth Form College - design of the energy consumption College in the UK which aims to reduce operational energy use by more than 60% compared to previous designs;
  • UK National Composites Centre - providing technical expertise to bring the latest lightweight carbon fibre materials to all engineering sectors, helping to develop innovative applications and reduce costs and carbon;
  • US Environmental Protection Agency - providing technical assessment and analysis of national water-related resources and ecological systems in North America;
  • Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) broadband - providing technical, commercial and procurement support to help deliver broadband to one of Europe's most remote regions.


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