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The ITER Organization has begun recruitment for its 2026 internship program.

We invite students from across the ITER Members (the People's Republic of China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, the United States) to apply for one of our exciting internship opportunities. All Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD students enrolled in a fully accredited degree program are eligible to apply. Internships are offered for up to six months and are extendable to up to one year under certain circumstances. 

The first wave of the campaign runs from 15 November 2025 through 6 January 2026, with the publication of 28 offers on the ITER website. A second-wave campaign will be advertised from 17 January 2026 through 28 February 2026.

See this page to apply. The deadline for first-wave opportunities is 6 January 2026.

The WEST tokamak in France, with its tungsten divertor, is exploring the plasma physics of operation in a tungsten environment.

Research on WEST is directly relevant to ITER, helping to answer questions such as "How will the actively cooled tungsten components of the ITER divertor behave after hours of plasma discharge?" or "Can performant plasmas be produced if plasma-facing components are damaged?" or "How can the monitoring system be optimized for these components?" 

In a six-week campaign that started on 7 November, the team is testing the performance of a tungsten coating on tiles in collaboration with ITER, running experiments to test the "I-mode" regime (an ELM-free improved confinement regime with low impurity content) in collaboration with American and Chinese collaborators, and studying the growth of deposits on the divertor under high particle fluence.

The WEST tokamak (for W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak) is located at the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM) near ITER, part of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission's (CEA's) Cadarache Centre.

See the article published on the CEA IRFM website.

At the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility in Italy, progress was made in October on the MITICA testbed, where a full-size prototype of the ITER heating neutral beam injector will be tested before ITER operation.

During tests of MITICA's cryogenic infrastructure, the cryopump system successfully reached its nominal operating temperatures: 4.6 K for the cryopumps and 80 K for the thermal radiation shields. Controlled gas injection inside MITICA’s vacuum vessel came next, providing essential data on the cryopumps' behaviour and their capability to capture and retain gas under realistic operating conditions. The charcoal layer within the cryopump reached full saturation, allowing researchers to study gas release dynamics and system limitations. The campaign concluded with the successful warm-up of the MITICA cryogenic system back to room temperature.

Read a full report on the Consorzio RFX website in English or Italian.

Glasgow. Sharm El-Sheikh. Dubai. Baku. For the past five years, fusion energy has emerged as a discussion topic at the annual United Nations climate change conferences—the Conferences of the Parties, or COPs. This year in Belém, Brazil, COP30 is taking shape as a pivotal moment in the global effort to reduce energy consumption and turn to clean energy sources. 

On 12 November, at the pavilion of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), ITER and the IAEA co-hosted a panel on “Fusion Energy as a Clean Energy Solution.” The panel explored the current state of fusion from different angles: ITER’s ongoing leadership, the surge in private sector investment and fusion initiatives, the role of the IAEA and NGOs such as the Clean Air Task Force in shaping policy, standards, and other essential support functions, and a Nordic case study involving the governments of Sweden and Finland and centred around the private-sector firm Novatron. 

COP30 runs from 10 to 21 November. See all information here.

--On the fusion panel are (left to right): Laban Coblentz, ITER Head of Communication; Olov Hemström, Head of Strategic Projects at Business Sweden; Caroline Anderson, Director of External Affairs for the Fusion Industry Association; Mikhail Chudakov, IAEA Deputy Director General; and Rebecca Tremain, UK Director of the Clean Air Task Force.

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the ITER Organization have announced they will be hosting a session of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Lise Meitner program in 2026 in Cadarache.

The program, named after the Austrian-Swedish physicist who was renowned internationally for her work on nuclear fission, aims to enhance the participation of women in the nuclear sector by providing early- and mid‑career women professionals with opportunities to participate in a multi-week visiting professional program and advance their technical and soft skills. 

Around fifteen participants from IAEA member states will be welcomed for two weeks for training sessions, workshops, and conferences led by experts from ITER, the CEA, and the IAEA. They will also have the opportunity to tour state-of-the-art research facilities at both ITER and the CEA, allowing them to discover the latest technological advancements and gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with managing large-scale projects in the nuclear energy sector.

See the press release in English and in French.

-- IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, CEA Chairman Anne-Isabelle Etienvre, and ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi announce the news at ITER on 13 November.

ITER Scientist Fellow Livia Casali has been named winner of the Katherine E. Weimar Award by the American Physical Society (APS) "for outstanding scientific contributions to plasma boundary physics and core-edge integration through innovative experiments and modelling supporting the operation of high-performance core plasmas, and for exemplary leadership."

A professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (USA), Casali also contributes her knowledge and expertise as part of the ITER Scientist Fellow network and has participated in the recent updating of the ITER Research Plan as an international expert. Her work focuses on boundary physics and core-edge integrated solutions with special emphasis on the role of the radiative divertor, divertor detachment, pedestal fuelling, impurity behaviour and negative triangularity. 

The Katherine E. Weimar Award is presented every two years to a woman scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of plasma physics.

See the original article on the University of Tennessee Knoxville website.
See more about the Katherine E. Weimar Award here.
--Photo courtesy of the University of Tennessee Knoxville