Of Interest archive

The European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, has developed five educational modules on the basics of fusion energy for use in secondary schools:

• Fusion Basics
• Road to Fusion
• Plasma Control
• Fusion Materials
• (Fusion) Deployment

The five modules can be downloaded in English for free from the FuseNet website here.

To ensure the widest possible diffusion of these educational materials, the team at FuseNet is working on translations to 19 other languages with the assistance of volunteers. Module 1, " Fusion Basics," has already been translated into Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Slovak, Spanish and Ukrainian, and other language versions are in progress (Arabic, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, and Slovenian). Translations of Modules 2-5 are either available or planned (see the progress chart on the FuseNet website).

To download all available versions, open the individual modules on this page and click in the right margin.

If you would like to contribute to translating the modules, contact FuseNet at: feo@fusenet.eu.

Attention to companies of all sizes interested in fusion business opportunities! The European Domestic Agency for ITER Fusion for Energy (F4E) will be hosting Supply Chain Days in Barcelona, Spain, from 30 September to 2 October 2025. Participation is possible in person or online.

Day 1 (30 September) – Contracts Day

Day 2 (1 October) – Sustainability Day

Day 3 (2 October) – SME Day

See all information on the Fusion for Energy website.

The European Fusion Education Network, FuseNet, is organizing the 6th annual European Fusion Teacher Day on 10 October 2025. The goal is to introduce nuclear fusion to secondary school teachers throughout Europe, to discuss teaching nuclear fusion to secondary school students and to create enthusiasm for the field of fusion at the secondary education level.

The event features a domestic session with lectures by local fusion experts on current fusion research in your area, followed by a global livestream during which new (free) educational materials will be presented and keynote speakers from the international fusion community give an inside look into the largest scientific collaboration in the world. Both the domestic and global parts of the event are fully remote.

Participation is open to every science and physics teacher in Europe. Participation is free of charge. All participants will receive a certificate of attendance after the event.

Find the agenda and more information about registration page on the event webpage. 

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) has released an updated version of its Global Fusion Map, a public resource that tracks the rapidly expanding international fusion energy landscape.

The new edition highlights major additions across private-sector projects, government initiatives, research collaborations, and commercial milestones. Designed for policymakers, industry leaders, journalists, and the public, the tool provides a clear picture of how the field is evolving and where activity is concentrated. The map also illustrates the range of fusion approaches under development worldwide—including magnetic confinement, magnetized target fusion, inertial confinement, and field-reversed configuration—while providing insight into project scale by reported investment. 

CATF adds a disclaimer stating that " the map has been compiled from publicly available sources and is not exhaustive."  Access the updated CATF Global Fusion Map here: https://www.catf.us/global-fusion-map/.  

See the announcement on the CATF website.

Fusion Power Associates (FPA), the US-based non-profit that has been advocating for the development of fusion energy since its founding in 1979, is making a few changes. 

In a letter to FPA members and the broader fusion community, the organization announced that its longtime president and co-founder Stephen O. Dean would be transitioning to the role of President Emeritus and that the organization would be moving from the Washington DC area to be hosted by the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego). Michael Campbell and Farhat Beg, respectively Professor of Practice and Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the university, will be taking over as Fusion Power Associates President and Senior Vice President.

Recent developments are contributing to a growing fusion ecosystem in the San Diego area. General Atomics, which operates the DIII-D tokamak for the US Department of Energy and also fabricates target assemblies for inertial fusion, is located just north of the city. (See the story on the completion at General Atomics of the ITER central solenoid is this issue of the ITER Newsline.) The company announced in March that it was collaborating with UCSD on a Fusion Data Science and Digital Engineering Center as part of efforts to fast-track fusion energy development; it is also part of a new research collaborative focused on developing and scaling up inertial fusion power facilities. And at UCSD, a Fusion Engineering Institute was launched last year to focus on some of the engineering challenges that must be addressed for commercially attractive fusion. With a large San Diego delegation planning to visit ITER later this month, we expect to hear more about emerging plans to position San Diego as a fusion R&D hub.

The 2024 ITER Organization Report on Human Resources has just been published.

Follow this link to browse through the report, which offers insight into the human dimension of the ITER Organization through statistics on staffing trends, recruitment, mobility, development, performance, remuneration, and more. It also highlights the growing diversity of the organization—both in terms of professional roles and also in terms of the backgrounds and profiles of ITER staff and their families, who come from more than 30 countries.

To learn even more about what it is like to work at the ITER Organization, see this selection of staff stories. 

See all ITER Organization reports on the Publications page of the website.

Change the look of your mobile phone with one of four ITER wallpaper options! Download the selection at this ITER web address: https://www.iter.org/node/20687/iter-wallpaper-mobile-phones

The Fusion Industry Association has released its 2025 Global Fusion Industry Report. The report, which surveyed 53 private sector fusion companies (up from 45 last year), found that there has been a total of USD 9.766 billion in private and public funding of fusion companies—a sum that has increased five-fold since 2021. In the past 12 months, investment totalled USD 2.64 billion, a 178% rise from the previous year’s growth. The figure marks a significant increase from 2024 and is the second-highest yearly fusion funding figure since the report began, after the 2022 record year.

Public investment in the private fusion sector is growing, increasing 84% last year and now totalling nearly USD 800 million across the globe.

More than half of the fusion energy startups in the report are based in the United States (29), while a further 13 are in Europe. The remainder are operating in countries across Asia and Oceania. The survey shows that private-sector fusion companies directly employ 4,607 people and support at least 9,300 supply chain jobs, although the Association believes this to likely be underestimated, as not all companies provided employee data. Since 2021, the number of people employed directly by private-sector fusion companies has at least quadrupled.

The report goes on to describe reported commercial timelines, company profiles, company milestones, and jobs growth.

Consult or download the Fusion Industry Association's 2025 Global Fusion Industry Report from this page.

Ever wondered why and how scientists will recreate the power of a star on Earth?

In this episode, "It's Magnetic," join host Kruti and fusion analyst Jack Moore as they unveil the magnetic magic behind ITER's fusion reactor. Discover how superconducting magnets creating fields 250,000 times stronger than the Earth's own magnetic field and can suspend plasma hotter than the sun in mid-vacuum—without touching anything. It's not one of David Copperfield's illusions; it's cutting-edge science.

From "Princeton D" shaped coils to the royal central solenoid (she's our tokamak's empress), our expert speakers Christine Hoa, Simon McIntosh, Alexander Vostner, Vladimir Tronza and Laban Coblentz break down the invisible force field that will help humanity harness the power of the stars.

Whether you're curious about how these technological marvels work at temperatures colder than the dark side of the moon or what the future holds for low and high-temperature superconductors, "It's Magnetic" delivers fusion science that's both accessible and awe-inspiring. 

Episode 4 of Behind the Science of Fusion is available now. Find it on the ITER website's podcast page or open it directly here. You can also find the ITER podcast at Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and Podbean.

The 360° virtual tour of the ITER construction site has been updated with drone footage from May 2025. Discover the principal buildings of the ITER worksite, and the construction activities underway inside, by clicking on and rotating the 360° photos.

Accessible from the NEWS & MEDIA pages of the ITER website or by clicking on the link below, the 2D tour requires no special equipment to enjoy. If you do have 3D glasses, click on the yellow goggle symbol at the top of any screen.

Click here to see the latest 360° ITER virtual tour.

As part of its Technology Development Programme to help early-stage technologies mature and be ready for future fusion projects, the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy organizes thematic workshops on fusion-relevant technologies. During these workshops, the current industry state of play is mapped and gaps are identified that must be resolved for deployment in next-generation fusion reactors.

Following a workshop earlier this year on the technologies of the fusion fuel cycle (systems that store, inject, pump and re-process the fuels used in fusion reactors), Fusion for Energy and the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy (EUROfusion) have released an 80-page report. 

It delivers an overview of the current European capabilities in the field and establishes a strategic roadmap for the next phase of fusion fuel cycle technology development in the territory. The report is intended to be used by the public and private European fusion fuel cycle community as a reference document to guide current and future investment.

See this article or download the report directly here.

All lectures from the 2025 ITER International School on Integrated Modelling of Magnetic Fusion Plasmas, which concluded on 4 July in France, are now available on the ITER website. 

The lectures were delivered by 17 prominent specialists in the integrated modelling of magnetic fusion devices and covered a wide range of topics—from whole-fusion-device integrated modelling with a wide range of sophistication and computational cost, to specific modelling of interlinked physics and control processes. The application of artificial intelligence to integrated modelling was a recurring theme during the week-long International School, presented as a promising development for the field.

Download the presentations from the 2025 ITER International School (and all other editions) on this ITER webpage.

EUROfusion has opened applications for its 2026 Engineering Grants program, supporting the education and development of a new generation of fusion engineers. These two-year grants are aimed at young engineers with a Master's and/or PhD degree working in or entering the EUROfusion program. Around 14 grants are expected to be awarded.

The grants support career development in key competency areas for fusion and are awarded based on the excellence of the candidates. New eligibility rules now allow applicants who completed their MSc degree between 1 June 2019 and 28 July 2025, and candidates may complete their PhD during the grant period.

The application deadline is 28 July 2025. See further details about the program and how to apply here.
 

A new report on the private fusion sector has been published by the Fusion for Energy (F4E) Observatory, describing "the vibrant and complex landscape of global fusion private investment." It tracks the rapid growth that has been documented in the sector since 2020, and highlights the concentrated nature of that growth geographically—with the US and China accounting for 85% of all funding. 

While the global private market currently favours magnetic confinement fusion (70% of funding), the European Union's private sector is instead allocating most funding (69%) to inertial confinement. As noted in the report, this important difference in the European Union's ecosystem may be a result of the availability of stable public funding for magnetic confinement fusion project. 

Indeed, the EUR 6.8 billion public investment in the European fusion supply chain for ITER, allocated through Fusion for Energy, has created "a foundational asset of unparalleled value"—a world-class industrial base. "However, aside from spinoff applications outside fusion, the long-term sustainability of these supply chains depends on a future fusion technologies market and commercial fusion plants, and this may be one of the main challenges facing the European Union in the coming years."

With these data-based insights, the F4E Observatory aims to support the policy conversation around the future European Union fusion strategy.

You can download or read the full report here.

See the announcement of the report on the Fusion for Energy website here.

Fusion researchers are constantly challenging the scientific state-of-the-art and improving the technology thereby creating the conditions for innovation, much of which can be exploited in other science and industrial sectors for the benefit of society. The SOFT Innovation Prize highlights and rewards excellence in innovation that can be found in fusion research as well as the quality of the researchers and industries involved. Following the success of 2022 and 2024 editions of the SOFT Innovation Prize, the European Commission is holding the contest again in association with the next Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT), which will be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, from 21 to 25 September 2026.

The contest is open to researchers, research teams, or industrial participants eligible for funding under the Euratom Research and Training Programme 2021-2025, to researchers or research teams working for a national program in an ITER partner country or in any third country that has a bilateral fusion cooperation agreement with Euratom in force, and to industrial participants participating in the ITER project.

There are no specific categories for this prize. Participants are free to submit an application concerning any physics or technology innovation that has been developed in magnetic confinement fusion research and that has market potential or has been taken up (or recognized) by industry to be further developed for the market.

Entries will be assessed on originality and replicability, technical excellence, economic impact, exploitation, and plans for further development. Proposals are studied by an independent jury composed of experts in technology transfer, from business and academia.

The deadline to submit applications is 03 March 2026. See further details on the SOFT Innovation Prize 2026 website.

The European Commission has published a four-week Call for Evidence to collect feedback and provide input for the European Union’s (EU's) first-ever Fusion Strategy. Programmed for publication by the end of 2025, the strategy will be a key step to position the EU at the world forefront of fusion development and accelerate commercial fusion energy in the EU. Through this Call for Evidence, the Commission invites research stakeholders, industry and startups as well as private investors to provide inputs to shape the strategy and identify the most effective actions to support fusion development and deployment. Available in all 24 official EU languages, the Call for Evidence is open until 1 July 2025.

See this news feature or participate directly in the Call for Evidence.

In describing the R&D program of the ITER device, the new baseline ITER Research Plan also identifies the top R&D issues requiring consolidation or refinement. In the interest of making these R&D support needs more widely accessible to the fusion research community, scientists at the ITER Organization have just released a consolidated updated list as an ITER Technical Report.

The report, published on 30 May 2025, provides the description of a selected set of issues related to completion of systems' designs, specific choices and options to be explored in the early stages of the IITER Research Plan, and strategic assumptions on the development of the Plan's experimental program towards high Q operation.

The support from ITER Member fusion research institutes provides an essential contribution to the further refinement of the ITER Research Plan. Making these R&D needs publicly available is intended to strengthen this support. 

Visit the ITER Technical Reports page of the ITER website, or download the 32-page document directly here.

The Fusion Industry Association (FIA) has released its 2025 Supply Chain Report. The annual report, which surveyed 22 private fusion companies and 57 suppliers, finds a 73% spending increase among respondants, from around USD 250 million in 2023 to USD 434 million in 2024 (and not all companies responded). The FIA anticipates that supply chain spending will grow by another 25% this year. 

Eighty-six percent of those surveyed saw their fusion-related business increase last year. The 57 suppliers who responded reported investing a combined USD 230 million on building new capacity (including people and machinery) to support this growth.

Concerns remain amongst fusion companies and suppliers regarding challenges in meeting the increasing demand. Nearly a third of fusion companies (31%) expressed concern about the availability of precision engineering and manufacturing suppliers to meet current commercial needs, rising to 63% for future needs. Every company surveyed named at least one key component or material where they had concerns about short- or long-term availability. 

From the report: "Overall, the biggest challenge remains the 'chicken or egg' problem; suppliers need to know that there will be a market to invest in, but fusion companies struggle to commit long-term in advance of hitting timeline milestones. A third of suppliers (31%) are prepared to take the risk of growing capacity to support fusion, and almost half (46%) will do so if there is some risk-sharing. Nonetheless, 83% currently see business risks associated with selling to the fusion industry."

The report can be downloaded from the FIA website at this address.

On a clear morning in May 2025, our drone operator captured a series of spectacular views of the international territory that hosts the ITER installation. Four times as large as the Vatican City State, but slightly smaller than the Principality of Monaco, the ITER enclave covers 180 hectares, of which about half is occupied by buildings and infrastructure. The land was conceded by France to the ITER Organization in 2010, and will be returned once ITER has completed its scientific program.

See the latest aerial photos here.

At the heart of fusion energy lies one of the universe’s most untamed elements: plasma—a high-energy state of matter seen in lightning, the aurora, and most spectacularly, in our sun. Scientists have spent decades trying to control it. But why? 

In this episode, host Kruti Fayot dives into the fascinating world of plasma: what it is, why it’s essential for fusion, how it’s being tamed inside machines like ITER, and the surprising role AI might play in the future of clean energy. Featuring insights from ITER experts Javier Artola, Michael Walsh, and Alberto Loarte, with a special introduction by plasma physicist Melanie Windridge and fusion analyst Jack Moore. If you’ve ever looked up at the Northern Lights or wondered how we’ll power the future — this one's for you.

Episode 3 of Behind the Science of Fusion is available now.

Find it on the ITER website's podcast page or open it directly here. You can also find the ITER podcast at Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and Podbean.