Gabriele FIONI (left) and Dongbai YE (right)

Jean-Yves LE DRIAN (upper left) and Yandong LIU (upper right)
Jean-Maurice RIPPERT (lower left) and Zhigang WANG (lower right)

Yuntao SONG, Gabriele FIONI, Delong LUO, Xuru DUAN (left to right)

The French Atomic and Alternative Energy Commission (CEA) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (MOST) signed on November 23 and 24, 2017 in Beijing the creation of the Franco-Chinese Center on Energy Fusion (SIFFER, SIno-French Fusion Energy centeR). This framework cooperation agreement allows both countries to intensify their collaboration on Scientific and Technical Research and Development for Fusion.

SIFFER's framework agreement was signed on 23 November, 2017 by Mr. Gabriele FIONI, Director of International Cooperation of CEA and Mr. Dongbai YE, Director General of the Department of International Cooperation of MOST.

This signature was accompanied by an Intergovernmental Political Declaration signed on November 24 by Mr. Jean-Maurice RIPPERT, Ambassador of France to China, and Mr. Zhigang WANG, Deputy Minister of MOST, on the side lines of the High Level Conference on Human Exchange, and in the presence of Mr. Jean-Yves LE DRIAN, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic and Ms. Yandong LIU, vice Premier Minister of the People's Republic of China.

The implementation agreement of SIFFER (Implementing Agreement) was then signed on November 24, 2017 by Mr. Gabriele FIONI, Director of International Cooperation of the CEA, Mr. Delong LUO, Director General of ITER-China, Mr. Yuntao SONG, Deputy Director of the ASIPP Institute (China Academy of Sciences), and Mr. Xuru DUAN, Deputy Director of the China National Nuclear Corporation SWIP Institute, establishing the formal governance of the agreement.

The four members of the SIFFER consortium, CEA / IRFM, the ITER-China, leader of the Chinese fusion program, and the two largest Chinese fusion institutes (ASIPP of the Academy of Sciences and SWIP of CNNC) are now able to jointly carry out scientific and technological R & D actions in the field of fusion. The topics covered are support to ITER Organization and its partners, the development of technologies for fusion, R & D in physics and the development of safety software and technical standards for fusion. This relies, in particular, on joint activities at the level of the scientific exploitation of French and Chinese fusion machines (WEST, EAST, HL-2A, HL-2M), and on R & D activities in support of future fusion machine design studies (ITER, CFETR, ...). SIFFER aims at pooling and optimizing the use of the human and scientific resources of the various Institutes involved and thus becomes a world leader in the field of Fusion R & D.