OREANDA-NEWS. The milestone 25th International Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2014) closed on St. Petersburg on October 18, 2014. The event was organized by the IAEA with the support from the Government of the Russian Federation and ROSATOM.

The Conference was attended by more than 840 delegates from 39 world countries. Most numerous delegations came from Russia, Japan, the USA, Germany, and France. Also, a significant number of scientists came from China, South Korea, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The Conference was called for to form a complete array of opinions on technological and investment aspects of the fusion energy development. Its program included featured sessions on magnetic confinement of plasma, inertial fusion, 3D technologies in physics and other acute topics. Many poster papers were presented in the framework of the Conference, and an exhibition was held.

"I believe that the main objective of international conferences like this one is to record our achievements in fusion physics by date. It seems to me that over time in St. Petersburg we have succeeded in meeting this objective. We have seriously advanced in understanding of various technological and scientific aspects of implementation of fusion physics projects. And in this regard, I would assess the general mood of the conference participants as very positive," reflected on the Conference Francesco Romanelli, a member of the ITER Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) and the quite recent head of the project on the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA).

St. Petersburg hosted the IAEA's fusion energy conference for the first time. The Agency holds such events once in two years and they are the main platform for international expert meetings on fusion issues. The first conference was held in 1961 in Saltsburg (Austria). Later, the conferences were held in Culham (1965), Novosibirsk (1968), Madison (1971), Tokyo (1974), Berchtesgaden (1976), Innsbruck (1978), Brussels (1980), Baltimore (1982), London (1984), Kyoto (1986), Nice (1988), Washington DC (1990), WЁ№rzburg (1992), Seville (1994), Montreal (1996), Yokohama (1998), Sorrento (2000), Lyon (2002), Vilamoura (2004), Chengdu (2006), Geneva (2008), Daejeon (2010) and San Diego (2012).