ITER Members
Director-General Barabaschi visits China
18 Sep 2023
During his first visit to China as the head of the ITER Project, Director-General Pietro Barabaschi met with members of government, leaders in innovation, and the ITER China team.
Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang met with ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi on 9 September 2023.
On 9 September 2023, ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi and ITER Deputy Director-General for Corporate, Luo Delong, were received at the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) by Minister Wang Zhigang.
"The Chinese government has always attached great importance to and deeply participated in ITER," said the Minister, after hearing updates on the project. "MOST will continue to strengthen cooperation with all ITER Members to jointly respond to challenges and jointly promote the successful realization of ITER's goals."
The ITER Director-General expressed appreciation for China's collaboration and contributions, saying that he "looked forward to further expanding and deepening" collaboration at all levels. He also made a particular plea for attracting young talent to work at ITER.
On 10 September, Director-General Pietro Barabaschi spoke at the Pujiang Innovation Forum, an annual event that aims to build a platform for international exchange on innovation and development.
Director-General Pietro Barabaschi was also invited to speak at the Pujiang Innovation Forum, which reunited world thought leaders and actors in innovation around the theme of stimulating interaction between governments, industry, universities and research institutions from 7 to 9 September in Shanghai. The ITER Director-General presented ITER's role within the mega science ecosystem of fusion to illustrate the importance of global cooperation in innovation.
Standing with Director-General Barabaschi is ITER China Deputy Director-General Yang Xuemei (third from left, front row), acting ITER China Deputy Director-General Qian Xiaoyong (fourth from right), ITER Organization Deputy Director-General, Corporate, Luo Delong (third from right) and ITER China team members.
A third stop on the China visit was the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center (ITER China). Since China joined the ITER Project in 2003, the Chinese Domestic Agency has managed Chinese commitments to the project, as well as promote domestic nuclear fusion energy research and development and advance multilateral cooperation. During a working meeting, the parties discussed the closer integration of the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies, current activities to re-baseline the project, and progress and challenges.
See the ITER China website here.