In 2020, the Swedish government announced the intent to start up a national competence centre on nuclear disarmament in Sweden. The goal was to highlight the importance of nuclear disarmament issues, and to promote research, teaching and policy support on topics relevant to nuclear disarmament. During the spring semester 2021, the Alva Myrdal Centre (AMC) on nuclear disarmament was established at Uppsala University. The AMC combines competences from different disciplines such as peace and conflict research, applied nuclear physics, and international law, and organises the work into six different working groups. One of the working groups is focusing on technical aspects, while the remaining five working groups are focusing on policy aspects. The technical working group is led by the Division of Applied Nuclear Physics at Uppsala University, where research on nuclear safeguards has been performed for over 30 years, and where competence in addition exists on a number of applied physics applications ranging from nuclear reactions, nuclear power and detection of radionuclides.