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General FSD Management meeting
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General:
- A FSD management meeting is scheduled for the following Tuesday; Marco will attempt to connect remotely from China.
- The Physics Project Board will precede the next GA; the agenda draft is being prepared by João, modelled on the previous autumn's agenda.
- Emmanuelle Tsitrone: Asked whether a draft agenda for the Project Board pre-discussion would be available.
- João Figueiredo: Confirmed a draft exists but wishes to discuss it with Marco before circulating.
- Marco Wischmeier: The week before the Project Board he will be on annual leave and only reachable by phone.
- Marco Wischmeier: Next week he will be in Hefei for the IAEA Technical Meeting on Long-Pulse Operation of Fusion Devices; the talk has been uploaded to the Pinboard.
- A second IO-EUROfusion discussion meeting is fixed remotely for the afternoon of 18 January.
- Xavier Litaudon: The Scientific Board will have a remote meeting on 9 December for finalization of the advanced computing selection, and a general in-person meeting on 9–11 March 2027 to review 2026 progress and prospects beyond 2027.
- The GA approved funding for JT-60SA scientific exploitation; most discussion centred on the DTT budget shortfall and credibility of spending timelines. A concrete example was given — a divertor monoblock procurement with a 9-month delivery time must be on-site by end of 2027; any delay would render the budget ineligible. A new DTT hold point was set for 1 December, by which DTT must have signed contracts for procurements; approximately 11 million euros from DTT projects have been released to reduce the shortfall and approve JT-60SA budget.
- Priority 1 reserve list items (project leader and project support officer in WPTM; equipment depreciation by Forschungszentrum Jülich for W7-X; missions and IMASification of JET data in the AC work package) were approved but explicitly at beneficiary risk due to the shortfall.
- The GA could not agree to include these items under the standard shortfall distribution key, leaving individual beneficiaries to bear the risk.
- Marco Wischmeier: Noted that Wolfgang Biel and Jerome both raised concerns at the GA but did not vote against the decision.
- Marcin: Asked whether the 2027 depreciation items for STEL would be rediscussed, as the current approval only covers 2026.
- Marco Wischmeier: Confirmed that 2027 items were removed by admin and will be rediscussed; the same applies to STEL.
- Ivan: Sought clarification on whether beneficiary-risk items are separate from the shortfall mechanism; Marco confirmed they are outside the standard shortfall distribution key, meaning the full risk falls on the individual beneficiary rather than being spread across all.
- Emmanuelle Tsitrone: Confirmed understanding of the scale — 11 million released from DTT against a shortfall of over 30 million euros; noted the relatively small size of the disputed items compared to the JT-60SA budget.
- Marco Wischmeier: Expressed expectation that the December GA will provide more clarity, and that Priority 1 and likely Priority 2 items will be regularly approved once DTT releases further budget. Priority 3 items should be considered effectively off the table for now given the scale of the shortfall. Noted a possible scenario where, if DTT releases all budget and other projects underspend, EUROfusion could end up with underspending, potentially leading to some Priority 3 allocation in spring — but this is speculative.
- EEG and ERG grants starting between January and April of the coming year will have funding formally stopping at end of 2027; what happens in 2028 is unclear.
- The GA intends to write to the Commission requesting flexibility for educational grants, given their reputational importance.
- The Commission has communicated a hard limit — no extension of funded activities beyond 2027. This means any plans to delay spending into 2028 (e.g., TE enhancements) will not be possible.
- PWIE's 60k€ for missions was raised by Emilia at the GA as an example of unresolved items; no explicit answer was received.
- Marco Wischmeier: Suggested Sebastian raise this again at the Project Board to ensure the activity can continue.
- Carlo: Asked whether there is room to move resources from 2026 to 2027, particularly for missions, given delays in the JT-60SA experimental campaign making some 2026 missions difficult to perform.
- Marco Wischmeier: Confirmed this should be possible and strongly favours it; noted that work package leaders were previously instructed to overload 2026 in anticipation of additional 2027 budget that did not materialize, providing a legitimate basis for the shift.
- Marco Wischmeier: Advised that any budget moved to 2027 should be demonstrably spendable in the first six months of 2027, not just by December 2027, to ensure credibility.
- Marco Wischmeier: Noted that Emilia had complained about not receiving feedback on project delays, and suggested the Project Board is the ideal forum to identify and flag such delays.
- Marcin: Noted that WPSTEL has 150 k€ of unspent mission money from 2025 that is frozen, which could cover both his and Sebastian's needs if unfrozen.
- EUROfusion’s existence was at risk but the Commission now appears to support its continuation into FP10; inertial confinement is likely to be added, with some interaction with PPPs.
- Marco Wischmeier: The FP10 working group must produce a 2-page executive-level document per working group by end of the month. The next bureau meeting is on 11 November; the FP10 working group document should be ready by then.
- A call for a new PM to prepare FP10 is expected within 3–6 months; the current PM will close out 2027. A decision may come at the December GA or the April GA.
- Marcin: Expressed cautious optimism, noting that science is expected to be important in FP10 and that a new PM represents an opportunity to restructure priorities.
- Marco Wischmeier: Argued that any new governance mechanism must be able to take decisions within a 3-month window, without waiting for GA approval cycles of 7–8 months.
- Carlo: Asked whether EUROfusion would simply close at end of 2027; Marco clarified the grant closes then but EUROfusion is intended to continue in FP10, though the timeline budget approval and consortium agreements is uncertain.
- Marco Wischmeier: Shared that the PM presented to the GA a proposal for DEMO Central team collaboration with Proxima on HTS magnet design.
- The Commission insists on a 2027 annual work plan; however, Marco agreed with Emilia that Admin should extract the necessary content from the existing 2026–2027 work plan. STAC confirmed they are not prepared to review any new work plans and were assured they do not need to.
- UiT (Norwegian partners, previously associated with DTU) now participates like UKAEA — contributing at zero cost to EUROfusion without receiving funding; they claimed activities in WPSTEL, WPTM, and WPTE.
- Marco Wischmeier: Stated that only project leaders and task force leaders can decide whether activities are included; administration cannot make this determination.
- Marco Wischmeier: Told that the claimed PPY amounts are unreasonable; activities for 2024 and 2025 cannot be retroactively added as technical reports are finalized; only 2026 (and potentially 2027 via the upcoming TE call) can be considered.
- Botond Meszaros: Summarized the Monday meeting — asked Stefan to provide a list of claimed activities and associated PPY; made clear no decision has been taken. Received a document from Stefan. Noted that the first publication listed was published in June 2026.
- Marco Wischmeier: Stated the document as presented is unacceptable; UiT appears to misunderstand what participating in EUROfusion means — one cannot simply declare all internally funded activities as EUROfusion contributions.
- Nicola: Confirmed he can imagine what types of activities UiT group might propose within WPTE, as some were discussed at the meeting in Budapest; however, there is no visible sign of ongoing activities — the persons in question have been absent. The claimed PPY numbers are not justified.
- Nicola: Noted that the first RF-related publication listed is based on data collected during a PhD and has nothing to do with current WPTE activities; it was submitted to TRED, not WPTE.
- Xavier Litaudon: Confirmed that for WPTM, he and Marcin found no evidence of Norwegian activities; will check with the PI regarding a reference to a Norwegian publication in the TSVV3 2025 report.
- Botond Meszaros: Confirmed that in TSVV B there is no trace of Norwegian participation currently, though a reference to a Norwegian publication exists in the TSVV3 2025 report.
- Marco Wischmeier: Plans to meet with UiT to explain the rules of participation directly, without needing Stefan as intermediary.
WPTE:
- TCV and MAST Upgrade are running; TCV announced no additional power before year-end and is considering extending the TBLLD configuration into early 2027.
- AUG informed WPTE of current limitations above 1 MA, and power limitations crossing the separatrix; this will delay some planned fall 2026 activities, particularly tungsten screening, to end of 2027.
- The impact on the interim memorandum of understanding deadline needs to be assessed.
- A call for experimental participation (TCV, AUG, WEST, JT-60SA OP2, JET, MAST analysis) will be launched 2 November – 4 December.
- The next JT-60SA experimenting meeting (ETM 11) is the following Monday; it will finalize the JT-60SA timeline, including coordinator names and deliverables.
- Assessment of JT-60SA activities is hoped to be completed by end of 2026, with IMS implementation and communication to participants to follow.
- Publication rules for FP10 have been updated on the EUROfusion website; a new requirement for JET publications is to attach an archive with a template for signals/code information used, as a step toward FAIR compliance and reproducibility.
WPSTEL:
- W7-X is operating; the current week features intensive ICRH programs to test antenna optimization.
- European partner participation is strong this campaign; mission budget is nearly exhausted.
- Marcin discussed with Ukrainian colleagues the possibility of producing a EUROfusion news item. A more general news item covering EUROfusion community contributions, co-authored with Sebastijan Brezinsek and WPPWIE, is being considered instead.
- Marcin emphasized that EUROfusion is a lifeline for Ukrainian scientists and this should be factored into discussions on the future of European fusion science.
- A TSVV meeting on stellarator optimization took place last week, bringing together colleagues from multiple European labs.
WPTM:
- E-TASC Scientific Board remote meeting on 9 December for finalization of advanced computing selection (support work for TSVVs).
- General in-person E-TASCcientific Board meeting planned for 9–11 March 2027 to review 2026 progress and prospects beyond 2027.
- Brainstorming underway for the EFPW (European Fusion Physics Workshop) contribution on fusion modelling, in collaboration with Gloria and Denis; discussions with experimentalists are planned to align simulation milestones with experimental vision for fusion power plant support. An outline is due by end of October or November.
- The HPC program committee meeting at end of September went relatively well; Pitagora is stable. CPU usage is low; all PIs have been informed to promote more CPU partition usage. GPU usage is satisfactory.
- TSVV annual meetings have been held, including TSVV4 on H-mode physics (well-attended) and upcoming TSVV on neutrals.
- WPTM will present three TSVV contributions at the plasma-wall interaction meeting in Aix-en-Provence (supported by CEA).
WPPWIE
- Mission budget shortfall is preventing full speaker invitation for the plasma-wall interaction meeting in Aix-en-Provence; an email flagging this has been sent.
- Attended an IEA meeting on atomic and molecular data for tungsten and hydrogen at ITER site; significant EUROfusion contributions on neutral particle benchmarks were presented, including first-principles simulation of van der Waals bonds at the rotational level, benchmarked with particle-in-cell codes.
- Post-mortem analysis activities are ongoing, particularly laser-based activities, which have produced multiple publications; Sebastijan emphasized the value of these activities and the risk of discontinuation.
- Collecting a list of potential budget shifts from 2026 to 2027 due to personnel issues or machine problems; will present this list and may flag it at the Project Board.
- Passed all information to Botond Meszaros for reorganization of containers from VTT and Romania.
- A planned experimental campaign at TOMAS involving colleagues from Ukraine, Sweden, and Belgium cannot proceed due to exhausted mission funds; this will be flagged as a delay at the Project Board.
WPSA:
- TCM 46 agenda is not yet official but is expected to cover: organization of OP2; diagnostics installed for OP2 and in preparation for OP3 and OP4; tungsten transition discussion.
- Additional visitor activities for OP2 preparatory work include: magnetic control, ECRH tools, and simulator training. A training session is planned for January 2027; preparation is described as well advanced.
AOB
- Next Meeting: Tuesday 20 October at 11.00 CET.
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