First coil ready to face deep-space cold

FuseNet has opened nominations for its Master Thesis Prize 2025. The prize is open to students who completed fusion-related theses in 2025 and recognizes outstanding academic work carried out at European institutions or in collaboration with international partners.

Eligible candidates can submit their candidatures until 9 February 2026. FuseNet advises students to coordinate with their home institution before submitting, as each FuseNet member institution may put forward only one nomination.

The 2024 prize recognized three researchers for their theses on divertor modelling, turbulence phenomena in plasmas with varying triangularity, and dimensionality reduction methods applied to magnetohydrodynamic equilibria.

FuseNet supports education, training, and collaboration for students and young researchers in the field of fusion energy across Europe.

More information available here.

As part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to China from 3 to 5 December, the two countries issued a joint declaration on "further cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy." It included a point asserting nuclear fusion is an “essential option” for abundant, decarbonized energy and reaffirmed their commitment to ITER.

France and China have a long history of working together to ensure the peaceful use of nuclear energy, dating back to a first protocol signed in 1982. Cooperation on nuclear fusion was cited in the 10th Protocol for Cooperation in Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy, which was signed in 2009 by former ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot when he was still Chairman of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The most recent joint declaration emphasizes the value of nuclear energy for addressing climate change and ensuring energy security while citing the important role nuclear fusion will play in the future. The declaration states:

“Both sides recognize that nuclear fusion energy represents an important direction for the peaceful use of nuclear energy by humanity and an essential option for an abundant and decarbonized energy source for the future. They are ready to continue their extensive participations in the major international scientific project of the Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor (ITER) in order to contribute to the successful promotion of the ITER project and its timely completion.”

Read the full Joint Declaration on Further Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy between France and the People’s Republic of China here.

Photograph from the Élysée website.

A new report from the F4E Fusion Observatory analyzes the latest data to provide a global picture of the growing private fusion sector.

The second edition of Global Investment in the Private Fusion Sector shows that, following major investments announced this summer, the cumulative funding for private sector initiatives is now at EUR 13 billion, with 77 companies in the field. "This funding is a mix of sources: private capital accounts for the majority at over EUR 8.9 billion while public funds, totalling around EUR 4.1 billion, are increasingly flowing into private ventures through grants and institutional support. A further EUR 84 million comes from hybrid forms like public-private partnerships and state-backed investments." The report goes on to break down investments by region, by technology, and by type of funding model.

Fusion for Energy (F4E) is the European Union’s organization for the development of fusion energy. It is mainly responsible for Europe’s contribution to ITER, but is also involved in major fusion projects such as the European/Japanese tokamak JT-60SA and the materials research facility IFMIF-DONES. The F4E Fusion Observatory provides objective analysis and intelligence on global and European fusion policies, R&D, technologies, investments and industrial activity for the benefit of European policy makers, the scientific community and other interested parties.

Download the F4E Fusion Observatory report here.

One of the challenges facing fusion is to identify the right materials for the next-generation fusion reactors like DEMO. A major initiative to find these solutions, the IFMIF-DONES project, achieved a major benchmark with the signing on 21 November of an international agreement to strengthen collaboration on testing to identify materials that best resist neutron irradiation.

The International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility-Demo Oriented NEutron Source (IFMIF-DONES) is based in Granada, Spain. The agreement was signed between the IFMIF-DONES España Consortium, Fusion for Energy (F4E) representing the European Commission and Member States, and R&D centres in Croatia (RBI), Japan (QST) and Italy (INFN). The multinational agreement provides a framework for the financing and operation of the test facility.

Learn more at F4E or the IFMIF-DONES site.