Sixteen talented scientists receive EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants
The EUROfusion consortium for the realisation of fusion energy has awarded sixteen EUROfusion “Bernard Bigot” Researcher Grants (ERG) to talented post-doctoral researchers across Europe. The ERG grants enable early-career researchers to develop innovative ideas and techniques to advance EUROfusion’s Roadmap to Fusion Energy.
Fusion energy holds the promise of providing safe, sustainable and low-carbon baseload energy that complements other clean energy sources like solar and wind. Realising fusion means solving many science, engineering and technology challenges in a comprehensive research programme.
In Europe, the EUROfusion research consortium takes up the fusion challenge with its strongly goal-oriented Roadmap to Fusion Energy. By involving excellent young scientists and their innovative ideas in its research, EUROfusion accelerates its progress towards developing the demonstration fusion power plant DEMO.
EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher grants: supporting excellent fusion researchers
As Europe’s fusion research community, EUROfusion is highly committed to developing a workforce capable of solving the physics and engineering challenges towards a fusion power plant. The EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants programme, named after the previous Director-General of the ITER Organization, supports excellent scientists at the post-doctoral level in their career development.
The selection of the ERG grants was based on the excellence of the candidates through a rigorous evaluation and interviewing process by an expert panel of retired leading fusion experts, and taking into account their diverse backgrounds. EUROfusion is committed to fostering equality, diversity and inclusion in all its form including but not limited to gender, nationality, socioeconomic background and disabilities. Based on the recommendation of the expert panel, the EUROfusion Bureau on behalf of the EUROfusion General Assembly has approved the sixteen highest scoring applications.
The ERG grants cover part of the salaries of the selected candidates and part of the cost of their research activities and missions for a duration of up to two years.
About EUROfusion
The EUROfusion consortium coordinates experts, students and facilities from across Europe to realise fusion energy in accordance with the EUROfusion fusion roadmap. EUROfusion is co-funded via the Euratom Research and Training Programme.
The EUROfusion programme is preparing for experiments at the international ITER project and develops concepts for the European demonstration fusion power plant DEMO. The programme supports fusion education and training, and works with companies to develop the European fusion industry.
ERG recipients awarded to start in 2025
| Name (Affiliation) | Research topic |
| Pilar Cano Megias (University of Seville, Spain) |
Exploration of plasma performance in positive and negative triangularity in spherical tokamaks |
| Robert Davies (MPG, Germany) |
Novel exhaust solutions and scrape-off layer physics in optimised stellarators |
| Emil Fransson (Aix-Marseille University, France) |
Capturing non-linear saturation physics in fast reduced transport models for turbulent transport in tokamaks |
| Baptiste Frei (MPG, Germany) |
Accelerated Gyrokinetic Simulations for Predicting Edge and Scrape-off Layer Turbulence in H-mode Plasmas |
| Henrik Järleblad (DTU, ) |
Reconstruction of fast-ion distributions with neural networks |
| Davide Mancini (EPFL, Switzerland) |
Three-dimensional turbulent simulation of plasma detachment in negative triangularity configurations |
| Markus Markl (Graz University of Technology, Austria) |
Integral Plasma Response Modelling: Isotope Effects and Access Windows of RMP ELM Suppression |
| Oscar Putignano (ISTP-CNR, Italy) |
Gamma RAy chereNkov Detector for fusIon pOwer meaSuremEnts (GRANDIOSE) |
| Adriano Stagni (Consorzio RFX, Italy) |
Understanding the impact of impurities on separatrix conditions and scrape-off layer transport properties |
| Andreas Theodorou (MPG, Germany) |
The thermal evolution of He-related defects created at reactor-relevant temperatures and their influence on tritium retention in EUROFER97 |
| Simon Van Mulders (EPFL, Switzerland) |
Towards real-time capable integrated core-edge plasma modelling including impurities, from TCV and AUG to ITER and DEMO |
| Yuliia Volkova (KIPT, Ukraine) |
Advanced diagnostics for disruption and ELM-like plasma loads in the QSPA testbed facility |
| Maria Vrellou (KIT, Germany) |
Investigation and assessment of possible operation limits due to critical hydrogen effects in breeding blankets |
| Tomi Vuoriheimo (University of Helsinki, Finland) |
Hydrogen isotope retention in tungsten – Effect of boron and trapped hydrogen |
| Tijs Wijkamp (DIFFER, Netherlands) |
Inference of post-disruptive neutral and ion density profiles for the optimization of runaway electron benign termination |
| Haowei Zhang (MPG, Germany) |
Nonlinear full MHD modelling of flux pumping in Tokamaks under the experimental parameter regimes |