Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

For more information, see our Privacy policy.

News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Test facility | How do electronics react to magnetic fields?

    A tokamak is basically a magnetic cage designed to confine, shape and control the super-hot plasmas that make fusion reactions possible. Inside the ITER Tokamak [...]

    Read more

  • ITER Robots | No two alike

    More than 500 students took part in the latest ITER Robots challenge. Working from the same instructions and technical specifications, they had worked in teams [...]

    Read more

  • Data archiving | Operating in quasi real time

    To accommodate the first real-time system integrated with the ITER control system, new components of the data archiving system have been deployed. Data archivi [...]

    Read more

  • Repairs | Setting the stage for a critical task

    Like in a game of musical chairs—albeit in slow motion and at a massive scale—components in the Assembly Hall are being transferred from one location to another [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | There is life on Planet ITER

    Dated April 2023, this new image of the ITER "planet" places the construction site squarely in the middle. One kilometre long, 400 metres wide, the IT [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

An "ermine sash" on Director-General Motojima's purple toga

Director-General Motojima had donned the purple toga of professors, to which university Vice-President Denis Bertin attached the traditional ''ermine sash''. Professors André Thévand and Sadruddin Benkadda are in the background. (Click to view larger version...)
Director-General Motojima had donned the purple toga of professors, to which university Vice-President Denis Bertin attached the traditional ''ermine sash''. Professors André Thévand and Sadruddin Benkadda are in the background.
The title of Docteur Honoris Causa is one of the most prestigious French academic distinctions.

It is awarded to foreign personalities whose contribution to science or the arts is recognized as particularly significant.

Last Tuesday, in the historic amphitheatre of the Université de Provence in Marseille, this honour was bestowed upon ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima, who, in the words of university Vice-President Denis Bertin, "has taken up a challenge on which our future depends."

In accordance with tradition, Director-General Motojima had donned the purple toga of university professors, to which the "ermine sash" was attached when he officially received his diploma.

The recipient's career was retraced by Sadruddin Benkadda, the scientific director of the Marseille-based International Institute of Fusion Science (IIFS). "Director-General Motojima," he stressed, "has always remained close to the academic world [...] He played a key role in establishing a cooperation between Université de Provence and the Japanese National Institute of Fusion Science (NIFS) and also in the creation of the IIFS, which is opened to collaborations with all the universities in the world."

''I cannot let this moment pass,'' said Director-General Motojima, ''without thanking my dear wife Kaoru who has been always at my side with constant support and encouragement.'' Mrs Motojima, in traditional kimono, is seen here in conversation with Japanese Consul General Danai Tsukhara. (Click to view larger version...)
''I cannot let this moment pass,'' said Director-General Motojima, ''without thanking my dear wife Kaoru who has been always at my side with constant support and encouragement.'' Mrs Motojima, in traditional kimono, is seen here in conversation with Japanese Consul General Danai Tsukhara.
In his acceptance speech, Director-General Motojima recalled his early calling to science and how, by embracing research, he had "hoped to contribute to the human society directly with practical scientific output."

He also explained to the audience (which included several young fusion students of Université de Provence) some of the fundamentals of fusion, the essence of his action at the head of the ITER Organization and, quoting ancient Greek historian Herodotus and French philosopher Descartes, his own approach to science.

"ITER," he said, "will be the stepping stone into a new era, in which a safe and inexhaustible source of energy becomes available for mankind." ITER's doors, he pledged, "will be open to the young people who will take on the future responsibility to complete the research of fusion energy."


return to the latest published articles