New ITER chief submits action plan

摘要

It may speak volumes about the demands and complexity of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in France that the attempt to revise and specify the cost and schedule targets for the project-already ongoing for several months-is not expected to be finished until November. On March 5, Bernard Bigot was formally installed as ITER's third director-general, and he presented to the ITER Council (the project's governing body, with representatives from the governments of the seven parties) an action plan that includes, among other things, the November target. Although not yet made public, the action plan has been described as following the recommendations of a 2013 independent management assessment, which in general urged that ITER not allow diplomacy to continue to interfere with the project's need for acceptable technical results.