On the annual meeting of physicians from across Poland and Italy there were discussions about the prospective of scientific collaboration within the field of thermonuclear fusion. Poles expressed huge interest with the participation in the project about the construction of tokamak DTT „Divertor Tokamak Test Facility”. The main performer of the tokamak will be the partners from ENEA (which stands for the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development).

Additionally, both parties have declared themselves ready to increase the participation in experiments both on Wendelstein 7-X stellarator and on the tokamaks including JET, MST1 and ASDEX among others. Not less important is a bilateral cooperation in educating the scientific staff. The increase of exchange between young scientists between research institutes in Poland and Italy was decided.

This year’s meeting was held in the headquarters of the National Center of Nuclear Research in Świerk between 14-15 July 2016, where more than 30 scientists from both countries took part.

In the first half of June 2016 there was one of the crucial events of the Institute, namely the Summer School of Plasma Physics in Kudowa-Zdroj – „Kudowa Summer School Towards Fusion Energy”.

13th edition of the school collected more than 60 participants, including 47 students and 14 lecturers from Poland, Great Britain, Romania, Ukraine, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, France, India, Iran, Egypt, Lithuania, Belgium, Denmark and Austria. During the five days of school there were 17 hours of lectures on plasma physics and 13 hours of speeches prepared by the students. The lectures were performed by outstanding lecturers from the leading scientific centers such as the ITER organization (France), Max-Planck Institute fur Plasmaphysik (Germany), ForschungszentrumJuelich (Germany), ENEA (Italy), who thanks to their scientific works contribute to the development of thermonuclear  technologies.

During the school there was a competition on the best presentations presented by the students. There were four winners: from India, Poland, Germany and Italy. They were awarded with cash prizes.

Five students submitted their scientific articles to publish in the magazine Nukleonika, which will be published in 2017.

The next edition of the school will take place in 2018.

The scientists from IFPiLM took part in the family picnic organized on Children’s Day in the gardens of Prime Minister’s Office. For the youngest participants of the picnic there were prepared physical jigsaws, puzzles, drawings, cut-outs and other activities. In the interactive displays it was possible to learn about the activity of plasma balls and the use of magnetic confinement devices.

During the picnic different promotional materials were handed out. It was prepared both by the Institute and Ministry of Development under the aegis of which the participation of IFPiLM was possible.  

This year’s picnic ‘Children rule’ took place on 5th June and was opened by the Prime Minister Beata Szydło.

On 7th May 2016 the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion participated in the jubilee 20th edition of the Scientific Picnic. The Institute scientists enthusiastically talked about nuclear fusion, magnetic confinement, plasma physics as well as the future of thermonuclear energy.

In the Institute stand you could touch plasma balls that responded both on touch and pulse air, set a levitating globe in magnetic field, and also make jigsaw displaying the chamber of fusion reactor and the reactor itself and receive some scientific comics as a prize.

The thing that attracted adult participants of the Picnic the most was a model presenting the future fusion power plants DEMO. The model is a part of the FusionExpo exhibition, the parts of which are displayed in the main hall of the Sylwester Kaliski Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion.

The photos from the Scientific Picnic 2016 can be seen by clicking the section ‘Gallery’ on the homepage of www.ifpilm.pl.