From a total of 140 applications, the Fusion Doctoral College was selected this month as one of the 10 Erasmus Mundus programmes for Joint Doctorates in the coming years. The Fusion Doctoral College - in short Fusion-DC - is an international Doctoral College in fusion science and engineering, intended for the training of a new generation of fusion scientists and engineers.

The Erasmus Mundus programme is a highly competitive cooperation and mobility programme in the field of higher education that aims to enhance the quality of European higher education and to promote dialogue. With the enrollment into the program, the Fusion-DC consortium can start 40 PhD projects within the next five years.

The Fusion-DC consortium offers Joint Doctoral Programmes (i.e. at two or more institutes) in Fusion Science and Engineering, and is supported by 19 European partner institutions from 8 EU countries (8 full partners and 11 associated), the ITER Organization and 9 associated partners from China, Japan, Russia and the USA.

The programmes involve an attractive variety of educational and training activities (among which a yearly PhD summer event) and diverse research opportunities at these partner institutions and worldwide research facilities.

The Fusion Doctoral College is coordinated by Ghent University and consists of 9 members:

• Ghent University, Belgium
• CEA, France
• Henri Poincare University of Nancy, France
• Max-Planck-Institute for plasma physics, Garching and Greisfwald, Germany
• University of Stuttgart, Germany
• University of Padova, Italy
• IST Lisbon, Portugal
• Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain
• Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

Applications to the Fusion-DC are expected to start in the second half of September, after publication of the thesis subjects.

More information can be found on the website of the Fusion Doctoral College:
http://www.em-fusion-dc.org/