The ITER Organisation

The ITER project brings together countries representing half of the world's population to co-operate in the development of a major potential new technology. The challenges of the ITER project require the highest level of technological and scientific expertise, which can best be harnessed by pooling resources globally.

The ITER project is being undertaken by the ITER International Organisation, which has its headquarters in Cadarache, France. The ITER Organisation is responsible for all aspects of the project: the licensing procedure, the hardware procurements mostly provided in kind by the Parties, the construction, the twenty-year operation period, and ultimately for decommissioning of ITER at the end of its lifetime.

This organisation was established by the ITER agreement, which was signed by the parties in November 2006 and later ratified by the governments of the participating partners. The current partners are the European Union, Japan, the Russian Federation, China, India, South Korea and the USA. Other countries that want to contribute to the project (and who have demonstrated a capacity for specific technologies and knowledge) can become a partner, or can cooperate with other partners.

The members of the Organisation bear the costs of ITER. The EU contributes almost half of the costs, the other partners share the remaining part. Most of the components are being contributed by the members in kind, meaning that they manufacture the components themselves, rather than paying for them.

Construction of the ITER complex begins in 2009, while assembly of the tokamak itself is scheduled to begin in the year 2013. The first plasma is expected to be produced in 2018.

Management of the ITER International Organisation

The Director-General of the project is Kaname Ikeda, former Ambassador of Japan to Croatia. The Project Construction Leader is Dr. Norbert Holtkamp, born German, and former director of accelerator systems at the Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge, USA. More information on the management can be found here.

Figure 1:Figure 1:Impression of the ITER site (top).
Below, the existing site of CEA is shown, which
houses the Tore Supra fusion experiment.

ITER is being constructed in Cadarache, in the South of France. This was unanimously decided in June 2005 by the ITER partners during a meeting in Moscow. The site was supported for a number of reasons, the first one being, of course, that the site satisfies all the technical requirements specified by the international team in charge of the design of ITER.

Secondly, Cadarache already hosts the world´s largest super-conducting fusion experiment Tore-Supra at the CEA Cadarache Research Centre, one of the biggest civil nuclear research centres in Europe. The Cadarache site therefore provides invaluable technical support facilities and expertise.

A third advantage is that France has well-established regulations for licensing ground-breaking "first of a kind" facilities such as ITER.

Figure 2:Cadarache and Europe

Cadarache is situated close to Marseille, the second largest city in France, which has an excellent social, cultural, industrial and academic infrastructure, an agreeable climate and a pleasant natural environment. These help attract the brightest and best scientists and engineers from around the world to the ITER project.

More information on the Cadarache site can be found here.