At the 2025 IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC), the members of the EUROfusion Consortium and the ITER International Fusion Energy Organization have signed a high-level cooperation agreement to strengthen academic, scientific and technical collaboration in support of ITER’s mission.
The EUROfusion programme has long been focused on addressing the fundamental physics and technological gaps identified by ITER. This new cooperation agreement builds on that foundation to provide a complementary, fast-track framework to deliver agile, targeted solutions to some of ITER’s more immediate design and engineering challenges, particularly those arising from recent changes to its baseline.
The new agreement, signed by EUROfusion Programme Manager Gianfranco Federici and ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi, establishes a framework for a more targeted and coordinated European contribution to ITER over the next two years.
The collaboration focuses on three initial Implementing Agreements:
- Support for the design of the ITER first wall,
- Development of tungsten coating techniques for stainless steel wall components,
- Joint initiatives in training and education to prepare the next generation of fusion specialists.
Beyond these first steps, the agreement opens the door for joint activities in research, engineering, data exchange, and knowledge management — all aimed at ensuring a smooth transition from ITER’s construction to operation.
Gianfranco Federici, EUROfusion Programme Manager said:
“This agreement marks a new level of partnership between EUROfusion and ITER. It allows us to focus European expertise where it matters most — supporting ITER as the world’s flagship for fusion energy.”
Pietro Barabaschi, ITER Director-General said:
“The ITER project and EUROfusion have a long history of working together. The agreement today is important because it formalizes that cooperation. I am very grateful that EUROfusion is ready to deploy resources to ITER. As I said at the conference today, ITER is facility for the community and EUROfusion represents the fusion community in Europe.”
Richard Kamendje, EUROfusion International Collaborations Manager said:
“The agreement is about enabling EUROfusion to provide additional support to the ITER project by looking into issues that have been raised because of the rebaselining. And what we are trying to do here in particular here is to provide support to design of in-vessel components in particular the first wall and this is crutial right now for ITER for the integrity of the facility. Basically the agreement lasts as long as needed but the idea is that we’d like to kick in as quickly as possible activities and actions and we have actually started working on this. We have dedicated teams visited ITER, working with ITER experts and the idea is just to frame to this collabroation framework.”
The cooperation reinforces Europe’s leading role in the global fusion landscape, ensuring that scientific expertise, training, and technological innovation continue to advance hand in hand with ITER’s development.