Eisuke Tada takes over the leadership of the ITER Project

Deputy Director-General of the ITER Organization since 2015, Eisuke Tada has been appointed by the ITER Council in the interim role of Director-General with full powers, responsibilities and authority. Dr Tada takes over leadership of the project until a long-term successor to Dr Bigot has been identified and is ready to take office.

A widely respected leader in the fusion community and a seasoned veteran from ITER's earliest days, Dr Tada has dedicated most of his professional life to fusion energy and, more particularly, the ITER Project.

Eisuke Tada entered the world of fusion research immediately after his training as a mechanical engineer, accepting a position at the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute JAERI (now, the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology). JAERI, at the time, was building one of the six toroidal field coils of the Large Coil Task, a joint Euratom, US, Japanese and Swiss collaborative venture to demonstrate the design principles and fabrication techniques to be applied in the construction of a superconducting tokamak. Dr Tada spent more than 10 years helping to develop the technologies and the infrastructure for large high-field magnets and was responsible in particular for designing advanced technology for the circulation of supercritical helium. A few years after the decision to build ITER was made, he was asked to contribute to the ITER Conceptual Design Activities in Garching, Germany, where he spent 18 months on the effort to define the technical characteristics of the ITER Tokamak.

Dr Tada went on at JAERI to successively manage and coordinate the early design of ITER Tokamak components such as the double-walled vacuum vessel and remote handling equipment, lead the effort to establish site and safety standards, and establish codes and standards for the development of ITER mechanical components. Also during this time, he directed the Joint Work Site for ITER in Naka, Japan—part of the ITER Engineering Design Activities phase (1992-2001) to create the engineering drawings and models for the construction of the planned tokamak. As the negotiations for locating the ITER Project accelerated, Dr Tada was closely involved first in assessing multiple candidate sites in Japan, and then as part of the international board considering the proposals of the final four candidates.

When the project site in France was selected, Dr Tada was one of the seven ITER Organization "pioneers" who arrived to open the office in 2006. Between 2007 and 2010, he held the strategic positions of Head of Project Office and Head of Office for Central Integration & Engineering, supervising over 100 staff and developing the tools to develop and execute the project baseline structure (technical scope, schedule and cost). He created the earliest ITER Organization-Domestic Agency coordination team to smooth the interaction of the newly created domestic teams and collaboration on interface and procurement issues.

He went back to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (formerly JAERI) between 2010 and 2015, becoming the Head of the ITER Japan Domestic Agency, with responsibility for supervising all in-kind contributions to ITER, and Deputy Director of the Naka Fusion Institute.

In May 2015, Eisuke Tada returned to the ITER Organization as Deputy Director-General, appointed by the ITER Council to collaborate closely with the ITER Director-General and other top executives in the day-to-day management of the ITER Project.

In his message to ITER staff, Eisuke Tada wrote, "The challenges that lie ahead are well known to us all. We have committed to deliver the ITER Project as a first-of-a-kind hydrogen fusion plant, but also as a collaboration among all seven ITER Members—a unique opportunity to leave a better energy legacy for our children and future generations."