The purpose of The Cockcroft Institute is to research, design and develop particle accelerators, machines that can be used to reveal the nature of matter, to probe what happened at the instant the universe was born and to develop new materials and medicines to improve our quality of life. These machines are at the cutting-edge of technology, pushing to the limits our ability to control and understand processes happening at the smallest scales, and at the speed of light. They range from very small instruments built to manipulate a difficult process to large sources of particles to create and probe the innermost workings of atoms. The global economy can afford only a few of these latter machines and so they demand collaboration between multi-national teams of the world’s best scientists and engineers.The Cockcroft Institute - a collaboration between academia, national laboratories, industry and local economy - brings together the best accelerator scientists, engineers, educators and industrialists to conceive, design, construct and use innovative instruments of discovery at all scales and lead the UK’s participation in flagship international experiments. It cultures the curiosity of emerging minds via education of the future generation and engages with industrial partners to generate wealth for the community that sustains us. I am honoured to be its Inaugural Director, following in the footsteps of and proudly reinforcing the original vision of its Founding Director, Prof. John Dainton.