Cooperation between CERN and ITER

CERN and the International Fusion Organisation ITER have just signed a first cooperation agreeement.

Kaname Ikeda, the Director-General of the International Fusion Energy Organisation (ITER) (on the right) and Robert Aymar, Director-General of CERN, signing the agreement.

The Director-General of the International Fusion Energy Organization, Mr Kaname Ikeda, and CERN Director-General, Robert Aymar, signed a cooperation agreement at a meeting on the Meyrin site on Thursday 6 March.

One of the main purposes of this agreement is for CERN to give ITER the benefit of its experience in the field of technology as well as in administrative domains such as finance, procurement, human resources and informatics through the provision of consultancy services.

Currently in its start-up phase at its Cadarache site, 70 km from Marseilles (France), ITER will focus its research on the scientific and technical feasibility of using fusion energy as a future source of power generation on earth. In so doing, the organisation will need to call on certain key technologies, such as superconductivity, cryogenics, control systems and data acquisition, which are already in use at CERN. "The experience gained from the LHC is unique and we are very pleased that this agreement will allow our experience to be put to good use by another large international project such as ITER", remarks Philippe Lebrun, Head of the Accelerator Technology Department (AT).