I think you're confusing the layman's fear of nuclear power with nuclear R&D. I don't know if you've noticed, but nearly every engineering and science college/university on Earth has a nuclear department.
Doesn't matter, it's still being hindered. Businesses who donate towards, fund, or are in any way involved with nuclear research are often listed as "unethical" by groups like
Corporate Critic, thus scaring customers away from these businesses, thus discouraging the businesses from investing.
I had a bit argument about that with my union - they enlisted
Ethical Consumer to help decide which products they should and shouldn't stock in their shop/food outlets. The big problem with that is that people rarely look into the details - each business is allocated a score which determines how "ethical" or "unethical" it is. Having anything to do with things like
nuclear power or
GMO, even for medical use makes your business unethical and avoided by some.
Now, sure, I don't know the exact impact of this issue. I've witnessed it in action, so perhaps I'm blowing it out of proportion. Nonetheless, there definitely is an amount of pointless hindrance caused to R&D simply because laymen are scared of what they don't understand.