THE boss of a top Oxfordshire science facility has urged the Government to protect hundreds of jobs at risk in Brexit talks.

Professor Ian Chapman, chief executive of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, said a failure to fund the site’s cutting-edge nuclear fusion research would put at risk the UK’s leading position in the field.

The JET ‘tokamak’ at Culham is the largest nuclear fusion experiment in the world but its funding contract is due to end in 2018.

Talks were underway to have it renewed, but these could now be threatened by the UK’s decision to quit the European Union (EU).

This is because EURATOM, the body which funds the Culham centre, is bankrolled by the EU and most of its members are also part of the bloc. It is not yet known if Britain will stay in EURATOM after Brexit.

Prof Chapman said: “We are already in negotiations with the European Commission to try and extend our contract to 2020 and there are good reasons to do that.

“But it is clear the commission will only agree if the UK remains part of EURATOM.

“If that does not happen, the Government could fund it instead but we need to reach a decision soon.”

He stressed the importance of retaining fusion expertise in the country, adding: “It is vital we maintain our capacity in this area, because we are genuinely world-leading when it comes to fusion.

“There are not many fields of science you can say that for – but there are things we can do that you literally can’t do anywhere else.

“We must protect that. We don’t want a repeat of history with nuclear fission.

“We were a world leader in fission but stopped investing – and now we buy it from France and China.”

The JET experiment at Culham has been running since the 1970s and research carried out there has been seen as vital for the eventual commercialisation of fusion power – seen as the ‘Holy Grail’ of energy.

About 1,200 people work there, Prof Chapman said. And of these, some 600 have jobs that rely on the JET experiment.

It is funded mostly by EURATOM and also the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Prof Chapman said he hoped the UK could remain in EURATOM as an ‘associate member’, similar to Switzerland.

In a written answer to Parliament earlier this month, Business Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said: “The Government is assessing the legal and policy implications of the public’s vote to leave the EU.

“This includes assessing the implications for the UK’s membership of EURATOM.”

The EU currently provides about €146m a year to fusion research.