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At a time when most events were being moved online or cancelled altogether, the team at IPFN (Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear) from the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal decided to forge ahead with the 8th edition of their in-person Fusion-and- Adventure-Extravaganza, aptly named PlasmaSurf. And despite being plagued with the familiar uncertainties of life during Covid, I think all the participants can say we are glad they did.

Master thesis at SPC, Lausanne Collisional radiative codes are essential tools for the interpretation of optical emission spectroscopy (OES) measurements, from which it is possible to obtain information on plasma parameters such as temperature and density of the plasma.

With the support of FuseNet, I had the opportunity to present the findings of my master thesis at the 9th Runaway Electron Modelling (REM) meeting in Garching, Germany. I greatly benefited from hearing about many different aspects of runaway electron dynamics, control and mitigation. Multiple experimentalists presented their work from the previous two years at tokamaks like D‐IIID, TCV and COMPASS and discussed the upcoming campaigns.

Studying blanket models of the systems code PROCESS at IPP Greifswald As a part of my master’s program in Science and Technology of Nuclear Fusion (Eindhoven University of Technology), I went on an internship to the Max‐Planck-Institut für Plasmafysik in Greifswald, Germany. With the aid of FuseNet’s funding support, I travelled to Greifswald and stayed in the institute’s guesthouse.

Supported by FuseNet, Amit Kharwandikar went to the Swiss Plasma Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland. There, Amit worked on the power exhaust problem for next-step fusion devices. He also enjoyed the support his supervisors and other SPC scientists gave him. His work at SPC even motivated Amit to pursue a doctoral title in his field!

Supported by FuseNet, Foisal Bin Touhid Siddiki travelled to the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany for his thesis. He ran experiments on the helicon plasma source of the IShTAR test facility, to optimize the plasma source of this device and validate the experimental results. He also enjoyed the experience working at a renowned research center.

Supported by FuseNet, Sim Bouwmans went to General Atomics in San Diego, USA. He worked on the topic of replacing the Langmuir probe diagnostics of MACE with spectroscopic measurements. He also loved San Diego, because it was so close to the ocean!

Supported by FuseNet, Francesca Cella went to Lisbon's Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear. For her MSc thesis she worked in the Theory and Modelling group where sje studied Alfvén instabilities in fusion plasmas. These instabilities can be detrimental to tokamak operation and thus need to be carefully understood. On her days of she discovered the two souls of Lisbon. What she means with that? Read all about it here!

Supported by FuseNet, Jos Scholte went to ENEA Brasimone in Italy to work on a water-cooled lithium blanket. He modelled the injection of high-temperature pressured water into the experimental device. His simulations didn't match with experiments, at first at least. Normally, if the theory doesn't fit experimental data you throw out the theory, but in this case it was the other way around. Jos found out that a leaky valve was the culprit. He also loved his monday pizza sessions at work.