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The International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA) has provided a framework for internationally coordinated fusion research activities in the ITER Members since 2001, when it took over the tokamak physics R&D activities that had been conducted on an international level under the so-called ITER expert groups since the late 1980s and 1990s. The work of the ITPA has resulted in the achievement of a broad essential for the ITER design and experimental planning, but is also very useful for all fusion programs and for supporting progress toward a fusion reactor. Since 2008, the ITPA has operated under the auspices of the ITER Organization and its participants are the ITER Members, who provide experts from their national fusion research institutions to carry out research in a wide range of physics areas. This research is implemented by seven topical groups under the chairmanship of an ITER Member expert and the co-chairmanship of two experts, one coming from the ITER Organization.

Until early this year, the experts and institutions participating in ITPA activities came exclusively from publicly funded research centres. Staff from privately funded initiatives could be invited to attend individual topical group meetings on an ad-hoc basis, but they were excluded from long-term involvement in ITPA research activities. To maximize the synergies between publicly and privately funded research, and in order to speed up progress of fusion energy development, the ITPA Coordinating Committee (CC), chaired by Dr. S.W. Yoon, decided in its January 2025 meeting to open the coordinated research activities to privately funded initiatives. 

This was not the end of the road, however. The ITPA is a voluntary activity whose legal basis is provided by international agreements among the ITER Members and the ITER Organization outside the ITER Agreement itself. After the go-ahead from ITPA Coordinating Committee, the ball moved to the court of the Executive Committee of the International Energy Agency Technology Collaboration Programme on Tokamak Programmes (CTP-TCP). This collaboration program provides the legal basis for the implementation of most of the ITPA activities and it already included, in principle, the possibility of allowing participation of privately funded fusion companies. However, some details of the IEA CTP-TCP agreement needed to be amended to make this practical. Following consultation with its members, the Executive Committee agreed to such amendments and its chair (Dr. S. Ide) sent the invitation for the first private company to join the CTP-TCP on 21 April 2025. If the answer is positive, experts from this company will join the ITPA activities, beginning with participation in the meetings of the topical groups being held in the next few months on the same basis as publicly funded research institutes. 

Companies interested in joining the ITPA should approach their respective ITER Member Contact Person at the ITPA-CC.

This widening of the ITPA collaborative work supports the request from the ITER Council to the ITER Organization to engage with private sector fusion initiatives. To further facilitate this engagement, the ITER Director-General has approved the release of the ITER Integrated Modelling & Analysis Suite (IMAS) and Plasma Control System Simulation Platform (PCSSP) software under open-source licenses. This will allow the IMAS data model to become a worldwide standard for fusion research and lower the barriers to developing, validating, applying and contributing to it. Software whose intellectual property fully belongs to the ITER Organization (e.g., PCSSP) or whose background intellectual property is publicly available can already be accessed under open-source licenses at . For the remaining pieces of software, the ITER Organization is seeking permission from the owners of the background intellectual property upon which IMAS is based and any codes not developed by ITER which are included in IMAS; these will be made available under open-source licences in the coming months as permissions are granted.