Michel Claessens
michel.claessens@iter.org+33 6 14 16 41 75, @M_Claessens

VISIBLE PROGRESS IN ITER
BUT STILL IMPORTANT ISSUES TO BE RESOLVEDST PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE, France (18 June 2015)—Convening for its sixteenth meeting in St
Paul-lez-Durance, France, the ITER Council welcomed the actions implemented by the new
Director-General to strengthen leadership and management in order to achieve a projectoriented organization. The Council members were pleased to see the visible progress inconstruction—such as facility construction, receipt and installation of large components, andprogress in manufacturing of specialized components—as well as the vision and actions todate of the new Director-General Bernard Bigot and the progress made in implementing priormanagement assessment recommendations with issues such as: the establishment of theExecutive Project Board (EPB), the reorganization of the ITER Organization Central Team toenhance the organization’s capability, the creation of Project Teams to address system-wideissues, and the implementation of a Reserve Fund.
From 17 to 18 June 2015, the ITER Council, the governing body of the ITER Organization, convenedin St Paul-lez-Durance, France. The meeting brought together senior representatives from all seven
ITER Members—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States under
the chairmanship of Robert Iotti (US).
The Members took note of the actions implemented by the new Director-General Bernard Bigot toachieve a project-oriented organization, one characterized by the profound integration of the ITER
Organization Central Team and the Domestic Agencies with the creation of an Executive ProjectBoard.
Work is progressing towards an updated project plan, which recognizes the serious accumulated delays,and which integrates the scope, cost and schedule for the Project going forward. This updated projectplan includes a resource-loaded schedule, and will be discussed at the next Council meeting inNovember 2015. The Council requested that this resource-loaded schedule be optimized for the earliest
possible First Plasma. To recover as much as possible past delays, the ITER Organization will takeadvantage of any available time while working towards First Plasma to install additional available
components that will accelerate the commencement of full operations.
The Council requested that the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies, as well as theMembers, continue to work closely to stop schedule slippage of critical/super-critical components bygiving top priority to those components on the critical path as well as to freezing of the design.
The Council Members visited the site and saw first-hand the progress of construction including therecently delivered first heavy components, such as high voltage transformers and two giant drain tanks,
which arrived on site earlier this year.

A contract was signed to carry out the 2015 ITER Management Assessment with Professor Jianmin
Sun (China).

BACKGROUND TO THE PRESS RELEASE
ITER—designed to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion power—will be
the world's largest experimental fusion facility. Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars:
when light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, a large amount of energy is released.
Fusion research is aimed at developing a safe, abundant and environmentally responsible energy source.
ITER is also a first-of-a-kind global collaboration that brings together seven Members (China, Europe,India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA) representing half the world’s
population and 85 percent of the planet’s industrial product. Nine-tenths of Member contributions aredelivered “in-kind” in the form of buildings and components for the ITER installation.
The ITER Project is under construction in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, in the south of France.
The photo gallery from the Sixteenth ITER Council can be viewed here.
More information on the ITER Project can be found at: http://www.iter.org/Page 2