Organisation

The EFDA activities are under the responsibility of the EFDA Leadership with the support of two staff units so-called Close Support Units (CSU), each being responsible for part of EFDA's activities. The EFDA-CSU Garching is located in Garching, near Munich (Germany), and is hosted by the German Max-Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik. The EFDA-CSU Culham hosted by Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (formerly UKAEA Culham), is home of the Joint European Torus facilities.
The EFDA Leadership consists of the EFDA Leader and of the EFDA Associate Leader for JET (Dr. Francesco Romanelli). Since the former EFDA leader Jérôme Paméla left EFDA on 1st January 2010, Dr Romanelli acts as an interim until the appointment of the new leader. The EFDA Leader and the EFDA Associate Leader for JET report to the EFDA Steering Committee. They elaborate all programmatic proposals, among which the annual work programmes and lead the implementation of these work programmes.

A large number of scientists and engineers from the associated laboratories work together on different research activities and projects under EFDA. A key role of the Close Support Units is to organise and integrate these diverse activities in a coordinated European Fusion Programme.

To that matter, the scientific activities are structured in Task Forces (two JET task Forces E1 and E2, and European Task Forces on Plasma Wall Interaction and on Integrated Tokamak Modelling), Topical Groups (European Topical Groups on Fusion Materials, Plasma Stability and Control, Transport, Diagnostics and Heating and Current Drive) and projects (e.g. the EFDA-TIMES project in socio-economics SERF or the Goal Oriented Training projects).

The planning and supervision of the activities carried out under EFDA is the responsibility of the EFDA Steering Committee (EFDA-SC) in which all the European Associated Fusion Laboratories and the European Commission (standing for Euratom) are represented. Since 6 October 2009, the Chairman of the EFDA Steering Committee is Dr Günther Hasinger. The EFDA Steering Committee, which has the overall responsibility of the EFDA activities approves the annual EFDA work programme proposed by the EFDA Leadership including the programmatic content, the schedule, the resources and funding.

The Steering Committee ensures the collaboration of the different EFDA Associates and ensures that the work programme is aligned with the long-term goals of EFDA defined in the Workplan. It also appoints the EFDA Leader and the EFDA Associate Leader for JET, upon proposal by the European Commission.

The EFDA Steering Committee is assisted by the Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC), chaired by Dr. Francesco Gnesotto.

The whole European Fusion Programme is coordinated by Euratom, which follows the advice of the CCE-FU (Consultative Committee for the EURATOM Specific Research and Training Programme in the Field of Nuclear Energy - Fusion) in which national governments and the Associations are represented.