New European Doctoral College for Fusion Science

A new International Doctoral College in Fusion Science and Engineering (Fusion DC) has been launched under the auspices of Erasmus Mundus, the European program to promote training schemes. The doctoral college is being supported with about EUR 5 million and provides 40 doctoral scholarships for work in the field of fusion research.

 

The Fusion DC is a three-year joint doctoral program in nuclear fusion science and engineering offered by a consortium of 19 European partner institutions from eight European countries, the ITER Organization and nine associated partners from China, Japan, Russia and the USA.

 

The Fusion DC provides a sustainable, integrated and coordinated education at the doctoral level in the framework of a worldwide network of excellence in magnetic confinement fusion. The doctoral college puts special emphasis on international exchange of experience: During their three years of funded doctoral work, the top students selected will do research at different institutions and spend at least six months abroad in order to make optimum use of the complementary research focuses of the institutions involved.

 

The world-wide fusion research network spun by the partners of the doctoral college comprises the universities of Ghent, Lisbon, Madrid, Nancy, Padua and Stuttgart as well as the fusion branch of the CEA at Cadarache (France). As associated partners there are a further eleven European and nine non-European research institutions from the ITER member states China, Japan, Russia and USA. This network offers doctoral students an almost unsurpassable variety of topical subjects in fusion research: during their training the young scientists will tackle the essential physical and technological challenges being faced on the way to a fusion power plant.

 

From mid-October physics and engineering students from all over the world can apply for scholarships. "They will then be profiting not only from the financial support, but also from the wide range of topics and experience afforded by the network," states Jean-Marie Noterdaeme, who is responsible at the Max-Planck Institute in Garching, Germany for the doctoral college. "For their special research objectives students can, for example, select the most suitable experimental facility and supplement this with theory know-how available elsewhere. Furthermore, they will have the opportunity to become familiar with different science cultures.

 

"This will be good training for the work on the modern fusion devices, particularly the ITER international test reactor, now being built as a world-wide cooperation. The construction and operation of ITER will bring together at Cadarache engineers and scientists delegated from their home laboratories all over the world," he adds.