In a new DANfusion consortium DTU is joined by three other Danish universities to strengthen Danish fusion energy research.
The new initiative will serve as a forum where physics and engineering researchers can come together to work on research and development for fusion.
DANfusion is the newest of Denmark's follow-up research centers funded by The Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science. These centers exist to strengthen and grow the national academic communities connected to European Big Science facilities and particularly the Danish academic utilization of the facilities that Denmark co-sponsors.
Enhanced collaboration on fusion research
In addition to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), the Danish EUROfusion member, DANfusion includes research groups from Aarhus University, Aalborg University and the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.
DANfusion will use the grant to allow researchers to travel to international fusion energy experiments and also to the national tokamak, NORTH, at DTU, and to build more knowledge of the field. The grant will also facilitate national meetings to foster collaboration and will fund PhD students’ participation in fusion-relevant summer schools.
DANfusion leader and senior scientist Søren Bang Korsholm from DTU Physics is looking forward to more collaboration between the four universities.
"Our goal is to strengthen the connections and collaboration between all the fusion-relevant research groups at Danish universities. Working together on a Big Science theme like fusion offers great advantages to Danish researchers - and to the field we're joining" says Søren Bang Korsholm.
As an example, Søren mentions the experience in remote handling and power electronics that the new research groups bring in.
"The fact that three of our members already won EUROfusion research grants on their first application this year, shows that we can offer valuable contributions to EUROfusion by involving a broader field of Danish researchers ".
The next step for the DANfusion partners is to discuss joint activities in research and knowledge transfer. A kick-off conference for all interested research groups is planned to be hosted at DTU in the autumn of 2021.