Seven Members building one tokamak: how the ITER fusion project is shared out

Background

ITER is an international fusion project, building its tokamak in France. As signatories to the ITER Agreement, the ITER collaboration Members are China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. They share in the cost of project construction, operation and decommissioning, and also share in the experimental results and any intellectual property generated by the project. Europe is responsible for the largest portion of construction costs at 45.6 percent, and the remainder is shared equally by the other six at 9.1 percent each. Members contribute very little monetary contribution: nine-tenths of contributions are delivered to the ITER Organization in the form of completed components, systems or buildings, so the scientific and industrial fabric in each Member is prepared for the step after ITER. Each Member has created a Domestic Agency to fulfil its procurement responsibilities, with its own staff, its own budget and contracts directly with industry. The working language for the project is English, and taken together the Members represent three continents, approximately 40 languages, half of the world population and 73 percent of global gross domestic product.