From May 5th to 7th our group member Juan Manuel Sánchez Melián represented our group at the 13th International BSC Severo Ochoa Doctoral Symposium, where he presented his latest achievements and progress. This event plays a key role in the BSC environment, providing PhD students and young researchers with the opportunity to present their work, gain experience, and receive feedback. Around 50 presenters from a variety of backgrounds, including computer science, physics and biotechnology, took part in this year’s event.
The group picture taken at the second E-TASC General Meeting
Between February 9th and 13th, 2026, the 2nd General Meeting of EUROfusion Theory and Advanced Simulation Coordination (E-TASC) was held at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany. The objective of the meeting was to collaboratively discuss the key points shaping both the present and the future of the E-TASC project. More than 100 participants from Europe and the US had the opportunity to gather and contribute to the topic. Several plenary sessions were organized to enable the interaction of participants with the EUROfusion project committee. Moreover, parallel and poster sessions were held to allow possible cross-interactions between the attendees.
On November 25–26, the 3rd Annual Meeting of EUROfusion HPC ACHs took place in Lausanne (Switzerland), hosted by EPFL, further consolidating the series of yearly gatherings. The BSC-CIEMAT ACH was represented by fusion group members Alejandro Soba, Federico Cipolletta, Augusto Maidana and Xavier Sáez, together with Joan Vinyals from the Best Practices for Performance and Portability (BPPP) group, actively contributing to the discussions and technical exchange throughout the event. This third edition has confirmed that this yearly event among ACHs has been an important step toward sharing results, lessons learned, and jointly planning future work.
Mervi Mantsinen during her talk “40 Years of ICRF Physics on the JET Tokamak: Highlights and Lessons Learned for Future Facilities” at the 25th Topical Conference on Radio-Frequency Power in Plasmas. Photo credits: H. Faugel (IPP)
The 25th Topical Conference on Radio-Frequency Power in Plasmas took place from 19 to 22 May 2025 and attracted more than 130 participants. Our group leader, Mervi Mantsinen, delivered an invited talk at this conference reviewing key milestones from four decades of Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies (ICRF) physics on the Joint European Torus (JET), highlighting its significant contributions to fusion research and implications for future reactors.
JET, Europe’s leading tokamak device, has achieved exceptional performance surpassing its design specifications, operating with magnetic fields of up to 4 T, plasma currents of 7 MA, and auxiliary heating powers totalling 37 MW. Its versatile ICRF system, with a frequency range of 25–56 MHz, has enabled a wide array of heating and current drive experiments.
Pizzofalcone lookout, Naples, just above the meeting location.
From May 12 to 16, the 2025 JOREK general meeting was held in Naples, Italy. Nicola Isernia and colleagues from the Federico II University of Naples organized the logistics for hosting the meeting. The meeting was held in the Federico II Congress Center, via Partenope, 36, just in front of the sea and below the wonderful lookout of Pizzofalcone and very close to the historical city center of Naples.
From our research group, Federico Cipolletta, participated in the event to share the work he performed in the JOREK code.
From May 6th to 8th, two members of our Fusion group, Pau Manyer and Hernán Domingo, participated in the 12th International BSC Severo Ochoa Doctoral Symposium 2025, presenting the latest progress and results of their ongoing projects. This event provides an opportunity for MSc and PhD students, as well as early postdoctoral scientists, to present their research projects in either oral or poster format. This edition saw more than 40 participants from a variety of backgrounds disseminate their research topics and achievements.
