An Associated Laboratory in fusion was established earlier this month between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the French Commission of Atomic Energy (CEA) to develop cooperation on two long-pulse tokamaks, EAST and Tore Supra, soon to be equipped with an ITER-like tungsten divertor — the project WEST.

The creation agreement was signed on 3 July by Prof Li, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) and Gabriele Fioni, director of CEA's Physics Science Division, CEA, at the French Embassy in Beijing. French nuclear counselor Pierre-Yves Cordier hosted the signing ceremony, with André Grosman, deputy director of the Institute of Magnetic Confinement Fusion Research (IRFM/CEA) and consular assistant Shunming Ding. 

The associated laboratory has been created to develop cooperation on CEA's long-pulse tokamak WEST* and ASIPP's EAST, particularly in the fields of actively cooled, metallic plasma-facing components; long-duration plasma operation in an actively cooled, metallic environment; long-pulse heating and current drive; ITER technology support; and the preparation of "Generation ITER" (see this issue's Of Interest entry) in all of the above-mentioned areas.

Xavier Litaudon and Yuntao Song are appointed as the associated laboratory's co-directors. They will be responsible for leading and coordinating the performance of the projects under the Associated Laboratory Agreement.

"I am enthusiastic about the CAS/ASIPP-CEA collaboration," said Prof Li after the signature. "The cooperation between EAST and WEST will be good for all fusion communities."

As a first step, ASIPP has already sent two young researchers to IRFM to work for one year on WEST component design and engineering.

* WEST = W (tungsten) environment for steady state tokamak