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FR
ITER Open Doors Day

Witnesses to history

1 Dec 2025

Fusion energy has been inspiring people to dream big for decades and this passion was on full display at ITER Open Doors Day this weekend as more than 600 people came from across France and Europe to visit the site.

More than 600 people tour ITER's machine assembly spaces on 29 November during the Open Doors Day event. This group is dwarfed by vacuum vessel sector #4, which was recently brought into the building to be mounted in tooling.

“The vacuum vessel sectors are absolutely amazing in real life,” says Kevin Ferencz, 17, an aspiring plasma physics student who travelled from Hungary with his family just for the ITER event. “This project is the future and it’s great to see it with my own eyes.”

ITER Open Doors Day has been organized since 2011 and has become so popular it is now held twice a year. The free tickets for this weekend’s event were snapped up in less than two hours and, in the end, 626 people were able to visit the Tokamak Building and the Assembly Hall on either a French or English guided tour.

Seventeen-year-old Kevin Ferencz, from Hungary, dreams of studying plasma physics in university.

“Sometimes there is a sense of mystery behind ITER, so it’s the perfect chance for people to see what we’re doing and meet everybody who’s working hard to bring this project to reality,” says Julie Marcillat, ITER’s local outreach coordinator, who has been organizing the event since 2013.

Personnel from across the ITER site—from security officers to canteen staff to worksite coordination staff—were mobilized for the event and 73 ITER volunteers were on hand to welcome and guide visitors. Participants were treated to various science demonstrations and interactive exhibitions, including a do-it-yourself electromagnet workshop by the local chapter of the Les Petits Débrouillards tech education association and a series of plasma experiments set up by a group of fusion enthusiasts who have been dubbed “the plasma punks.”

Six-year-old Clara is momentarily distracted as her family tours the Assembly Building during ITER Open Doors Day. Her mother is an environmental consultant in Aix-en-Provence and wanted her children to witness history in the making.

Beyond the colossal scale of ITER, visitors were also impressed by the promise the project holds for future generations.

“I work in sustainable development, and what interests me is clean energy and future energy sources,” says Danusa Janel, who took one of the French tours in the afternoon with her family. “I may not be around when fusion energy is deployed on a large scale but today, I am happy that my daughters and I can come and witness a project that is part of history.” 

2025-12-01 - Julie Marcillat, organizer of the Open Doors Day, directs visitors to buses to start the tour. More than 70 ITER staff volunteered to work on Saturday 29 November—a day that also mobilized cleaning crews, security staff, and restaurant personnel.
2025-12-01 - Things are looking up: ITER coil technician Shihang Wang directs visitors' attention to the heights of the Assembly Hall, which is the world's largest climate-controlled building.
2025-12-01 - Amateur enthusiasts known as the "plasma punks" were invited to put on plasma demonstrations as part of Open Doors Day. ITER’s IT Security & Policy Responsible Officer, Romain Bourgue, organized their participation. “They are experimenting on a smaller scale than ITER, but we are moved by the same passion for science and the sheer fun of experimenting with plasma.”
2025-12-01 - Visitors are eager to capture memories of "the place where it will happen." Four days before their visit, the third (of nine) vacuum vessel sector modules had been installed.
2025-12-01 - A family takes part in a do-it-yourself electromagnet workshop organized by the technology education organization "Les Petits Debrouillards."
2025-12-01 - ITER Deputy Director-General Yutaka Kamada shows a tokamak model to Adrian and Marietta Brown, who travelled from England for the event (and to visit their son Oliver who happens to work at ITER).
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