Background and scope
The global demand for clean, abundant, and sustainable energy has never been greater. Fusion energy holds the potential to revolutionise energy production by providing a near-limitless, carbon-free power source that minimises radioactive waste. It has been broadly recognised as a promising path to producing affordable electricity, according to numerous strategies, reports, such as Draghi, and roadmaps unveiled worldwide.
However, despite significant scientific and technological advancements, commercial fusion energy faces a number of technological, material, and economic barriers. These include:
- Achieving and maintaining the extremely high temperatures and pressures required for sustained fusion reactions
- Engineering materials that can withstand extreme neutron flux and thermal loads over long operational periods
- Developing critical components such as breeding blankets, gyrotrons, first walls, and divertors
- Designing high-power, efficient and high-repetition rate laser systems for inertial confinement fusion, and
- Designing cost-effective and scalable fusion reactors that compete with existing energy sources.
Europe has a competitive advantage in fusion with highly skilled scientists and engineers, leading experimental facilities and, is also the primary contributor and host of ITER, the world’s first fusion experimental device of "power plant level". Europe is also beginning to see growing private investor interest in fusion energy, particularly in emerging companies beyond publicly led initiatives, with a strong push towards commercially viable solutions.
This Challenge, supported by a transfer of budget from Euratom Research and Training Programme, will therefore support SMEs and start-ups advancing new fusion reactor concepts and key enabling technologies for fusion power plants.
Specific objectives
The start-ups and SMEs to be supported under this Challenge must focus on one or more elements of the fusion value chain including:
- Alternative concepts: magnetic, inertial and magneto-inertial fusion, either at the system level (conceptual or engineering design) or the design of core components and technologies
- Advanced materials: these encompass materials for components that must withstand extreme conditions of e.g. temperature, heat flux, plasma particle flux and neutron load, corrosion, and mechanical stress
- Sustainable and stable fuel production: innovative concepts for enabling tritium production and a closed tritium fuel cycle in fusion power plants
- New laser technologies: high-power, high-repetition-rate laser systems, along with allied optics, to enable fuel compression and ignition in inertial confinement fusion
- New components /systems for Plasma: innovative components/systems for effective plasma heating and current drive
- Magnets: innovative components and design approaches for magnets capable of operating under fusion power plant conditions, including high heat and radiation tolerance and structural strength
- Advanced Digital Technologies: includes the use of AI and machine learning techniques as well as digital twins to facilitate the design, control, monitoring and operation of future fusion power plants, and
- Targets for inertial confinement fusion: Advancing target design and materials to address current limitations in target performance and target insertion into the experimental/reactor chamber.
- Other key enabling technologies for fusion power plants not mentioned above will also be considered.
Expected outcomes and impacts
The Challenge aims to accelerate the transition from achieving fusion energy gain to the full commercialisation of fusion energy, positioning Europe as a global leader in the field. It supports the Competitiveness Compass for the EU by helping fusion energy start-ups and SMEs deploy and scale up their innovative technologies and concepts. Aligned with the Clean Industrial Deal roadmap, the Challenge contributes to a decarbonised energy mix and strengthens EU funding for the next generation of clean energy technologies. It also contributes towards establishing an innovation ecosystem that fosters investment and promotes growth in the fusion sector.
By developing and scaling up breakthrough innovations for fusion energy, the Challenge is expected to:
- Keep technology leadership in the field of nuclear fusion and build a value chain for the commercialisation of nuclear fusion, expected in 2040
- Enhance competitiveness and nurture the ecosystem of European companies;
- Attract new deep tech startups and SMEs to the sector;
- Facilitate the scaling up of technologies that address critical bottlenecks for the feasibility of commercially viable fusion power plants
- Contribute to the emergence of globally competitive European fusion energy leaders
- Develop new skills and create jobs within the EU, and
- Raise awareness about the potential of nuclear fusion in the private and public sector.
EIC Work Programme 2026
The EIC Challenges are extensively described in the EIC Work Programme. For more information about this challenge, please go to the corresponding section of the EIC Work Programme.