It has been almost two years since Fusion for Energy (F4E), the Domestic Agency responsible for providing Euratom’s contribution to ITER, was formally established as a financially independent body. Looking back, an impressive volume of work has been achieved in a particularly short time frame.

In terms of investing in human potential, we have come a long way. By the end of 2009, F4E counts more than 200 staff members from engineering, scientific, legal and administrative backgrounds. We had to rigourously select employees with expertise and commitment in order to build a highly qualified and dedicated team, of which I am very proud.

The main challenge was to make the organisation operational in a relatively short period of time so as to start collaborating with industry and SMEs to manufacture components for the ITER project. F4E delivered on a number of key technology milestones: the ITER platform on which the machine will be built was fully levelled, significant progress was made on key ITER components in the field of magnets, vacuum and fuelling, test blanket modules, plasma engineering and safety. In total, more than 100 procurement procedures and grants were launched. For instance: the supply of copper strands, the supply of the Nb₃Sn niobium-tin strand. By the end of the year a series of calls will be launched worth more than € 100 million which will be used for the first phase of the excavation of the Tokamak building and the fabrication of its seismic isolators, the first phase of the Poloidal Field coils, and soon the erection of the first ITER building to assemble the Poloidal Field Coils at the Cadarache site.

Finally, F4E was particularly active in raising awareness on business opportunities arising from the project. In the last 12 months, we participated in more than 15 related events. We also had the opportunity to welcome the President of the Catalonia, José Montilla, and during the Swedish Presidency, the Swedish Royal Technology Mission under the patronage of his Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

As per the immediate future, it is worth noting that at its 12th meeting on 26-27 November 2009, the F4E Governing Board, composed of Euratom (represented by the European Commission), the EU Members States and Switzerland, adopted F4E strategic documents for 2010 and beyond: the F4E five-year project plan and resources estimates plan together with the 2010 work programme and budget.

None of this would have been possible without the commitment and drive of the F4E staff.

Looking ahead

F4E News comes at a time when sustainable energy and climate change issues are high on the policy agenda, as well as the development of large research infrastructures at European and international level. The need for reinforced dialogue between citizens, policy makers, industry and scientists is stronger than ever.

With this quarterly newsletter, it is our objective to keep you informed on the progress of the Europe’s contribution to ITER and make you part of one of the most challenging experiments of our time.