A tribute to dedication and excellence
On 30 November 2022, five ITER teams were recognized for excellence during the annual ITER Achievement Awards ceremony and end-of-year celebration.
Now in its third year, the ITER Achievement Awards seek to pay tribute to the dedication and achievements of teams across the project by recognizing exceptional achievements.
For this cycle, more than 60 nominations were received in four categories in the weeks that preceded the ceremony. The suggestions were sorted to identify 3-5 final nominations in each category by eliminating the teams who had won in a previous year, and favouring those who received multiple nominations. The shortlist—with 3 to 5 nominations per category—was then put to the vote, with each staff member casting one vote per category.
The winners were announced during the end-of-year celebration, with approximately 1,600 people attending. The Director-General presented a representative of each winning team with a polished ingot of ITER-grade F316 stainless steel surmounted by a lucite plate bearing the ITER logo and the declaration, "You are the star makers."
- For the First-of-a-Kind Component Team Award, the winner was the poloidal field coil manufacturing team in recognition of the successful completion of a multi-year effort to fabricate all the double pancake windings for European poloidal field coils PF2, PF3, PF4 and PF5, all of which are now either completed or in the final stages of manufacturing.
- For the Balance-of-Plant Systems Team Award, the winner was the Instrumentation and Control Infrastructure Section for the largest handover of engineering work packages (more than 50) to the construction teams. (Engineering work packages reunite all the system and geographical information necessary required for the installation of components.)
- For the Installation and Assembly Sequence Team Award, the winner was the Sector Modules Delivery & Assembly Division for the installation of vacuum vessel sector module #6—an extremely complex first-of-a-kind component integration and assembly operation involving bespoke tools, delicate crane operations, and safety considerations at unprecedented scale.
- For the Best Support for the ITER Project Team Award, all ITER Organization assistants and secretaries won the award for unfailing support during an immensely challenging transition year, showing steadiness, reactivity, and resourcefulness—whether preparing routine correspondence and documentation, advancing procurement, budget, human resources and travel processes, or in responding to the unique challenges that came with 2022.
In addition, a fifth award was presented by ITER Organization Director-General Pietro Barabaschi to highlight the importance and value of the issues raised by one ITER team—the Vacuum Delivery & Installation Section (Machine Construction Department)—regarding the identification of leaks in the thermal shield cooling pipes and the efforts to determine the root cause. The Director-General emphasized the consequences these leaks could have had eventually on machine functionality, and the importance of raising awareness when any such issues are found, as part of a healthy project quality culture.
