Fusion research program in Korea

Fusion research in Korea is still premature, but it is a fast growing program. Groups in several universities and research institutes were working either in small experiments or in theoretical areas. Recently, couple of institutes who have small fusion-related experiments, proposed medium-size tokamak programs to jump into fusion research at the level of international recognition. Last year, Korean government finally approved to construct 'Superconducting Tokamak' as a national fusion program, and industries such as Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) and Samsung joined to support this program. Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI) has organized national project teams including universities, research institutes and companies. National project teams are performing design works since this March. (author)