16th ITER Council: Visible progress and pending questions

For representatives of the ITER Members—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States—it was the occasion to take stock of the changes set into motion by the new ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot during his first 100 days in office.

The Council welcomed the actions implemented to strengthen leadership and management in order to achieve a project-oriented organization, one tailored to the manufacturing, construction and assembly activities ahead. The closer integration of the ITER Organization Central Team and the seven Domestic Agencies, the reorganization of the Central Team, the creation of Project Teams to address system-wide issues and the implementation of a Reserve Fund were cited as examples by the Council.

Work is progressing towards an updated project plan, which recognizes the serious accumulated delays, and which integrates the scope, cost and schedule for the Project going forward. This updated project plan includes a resource-loaded schedule, and will be discussed at the next Council meeting in November 2015.

The Council requested that the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies, as well as the Members, continue to work closely to stop schedule slippage of critical/super-critical components by giving top priority to those components on the critical path as well as to freezing of the design.

The Council also noted the progress in on-site construction and in the delivery of the first heavy components.

Click to read the press release in English or French.

Click for the photo gallery of the Sixteenth ITER Council (IC-16).