The 3rd FuseNet PhD event was organized at the University of York and provided a stage for young researchers to communicate their work and networking opportunities.
One of the Ph.D students present, Jakob Brunner, reports on the last day:

Even after a very short night, everyone met for the debating session the next morning sharp as a knive for their discussion in the team debates. Nine teams of students had prepared for these team debates in the days before. Each team took position for or against one of the following statements, and tried to defend their position in a scientific debate:

• Is Fusion the most environmentally sustainable energy source?
• Is private sector involvement a help or hindrance to fusion research?
• Technology and not the science of fusion is the key to commercial fusion energy
• If ITER works, do we need stellarators or IFE?

This gave rise to some interesting debates and fresh perspectives on these important questions that were put on the table.

Final keynote speech and best poster/talk awarded by Lorne Horton, EFDA, JET.

Having defended their point in hot blood, everyone then got together peacefully again for the last talk sessions of the conference which covered Tritium production and alternatives for negative ion source materials.

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Lorne Horton's closing Keynote speech on Status and Plans for JET

The conference's closing talk was given by Dr. Lorne Horton on behalf of the EFDA-JET contributors, on "Status and Plans for JET". He then also presented the prizes for best poster and best talk chosen by all participants.

The best Poster went to Patrick Simon from Stuttgart, Germany on investigating geodesic acoustic modes whilst the best talk was chosen to be from Jonathan Shimwell on a scenario to possibly reduce the necessary Li-6 enrichment in the blanket. The conference was concluded by a lovely dinner in the Melton's too Inn.

A terrific combination of forefront science & enjoyment

In the aftermath the 3rd FuseNet conference was a terrific combination of forefront science and enjoyment. York showed all of its hospitality with an incredibly well organized program in a beautiful setting. A special thank you goes to Howard Wilson, Laurie Whitely and the conference organising committee, which was made up of the following five European PhD students:

• Ellie Tubman (University of York, UK)
• Arka Bokshi (University of York, UK)
• Merlijn Jakobs (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands)
• Patrick Simon (University of Stuttgart, Germany)
• Kostiantyn Achkasov (Aix-Marseille University, France)

Everyone now looks forward to next years event when we hopefully see what the science we saw this year developed into!

More photos, presentation and material from the 3rd FuseNet PhD event