Mervi Mantsinen

Group Manager

Breaking Barriers: Launch of OECD-NEA Report on Improving Gender Balance in Nuclear Sector

Credit: OECD/NEA

On March 8, coinciding with the International Women’s Day, our group attended the webinar “Improving gender balance in the nuclear sector: Report launch“ organized by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The nuclear industry is a crucial part of our energy infrastructure, providing a significant portion of the world’s electricity. However, the sector has traditionally been male-dominated, with women making up only a small fraction (less than 25%) of the workforce. The same applies to its sub-sectors including fusion where our group belongs.

In the webinar on March 8, a report was launched to address the issue of gender imbalance in the nuclear sector. The report provides insights and recommendations based on the first publicly available international data on gender balance in the nuclear sector. The data was collected from over 8 000 women in the nuclear workforce in 32 countries, as well as human resources data from 96 nuclear organisations in 17 countries. Based on the findings, a comprehensive, evidence-driven policy framework is proposed with practical recommendations.

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Private fusion industry is growing in both investment and confidence, says FIA’s 2022 Annual Report

The Fusion Industry Association (FIA), a non-profit advocacy organization representing nearly 30 fusion start-ups, released its second annual report on the state of the global fusion industry this July. The report provides an update on the milestones achieved in the last year by each of 33 companies surveyed as well as an aggregated picture of growth in the industry as a whole using data collected from the companies.

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Join us! We are looking for new members for EUROfusion Advanced Computing Hub at BSC

CASE members at a recent retreat

We are looking for Researchers and/or Research Engineers in Computers Science, Engineering, Physics or related fields to join the growing team of the EUROfusion Advanced Computing Hub at BSC.

The successful candidates will participate in cutting-edge European R&D activities in plasma physics science and fusion technology and become members of this reference performance group in an international working environment.

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PhD thesis on runaway-electron model development and validation in tokamaks

Dr Mathias Hoppe with his PhD thesis at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Credit: Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 2022.

On January 14, our group leader Prof. Mervi Mantsinen had the honour of chairing the evaluation panel of Mathias Hoppe’s thesis entitled “Runaway-electron model development and validation in tokamaks” at the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Super fast electrons, so called “runaway electrons”, can sometimes appear in fusion devices and can cause severe damage to the device wall. To develop technologies to prevent the generation of runaway electrons, advanced computer models accounting for all the relevant physics mechanisms playing a role in a fusion device are required, which constitutes the first part of Mathias Hoppe’s thesis. To ensure that the models are correct they must also be tested on the fusion experiments of today, which can be done using synchrotron radiation and the techniques developed in the second part of Mathias Hoppe’s thesis.

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Our EUROfusion Engineering Grantee wins Outstanding Presentation Award at MT27

The 27th International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT27) was held at Fukuoka International Congress Center, Fukuoka, Japan and online from November 15 to 19, 2021.

Our colleague José Lorenzo participated in the conference and presented a poster entitled “Homogenization of Winding Pack Properties for the Structural Analysis of Fusion Magnets” on the work he developed in our group within his prestigious EUROfusion Engineering Grant (EEG).

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