[en] Switzerland is associated to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project carried out in the framework of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). The current stage includes on-site civil engineering works. The Variable Configuration Tokamak (TCV) of the 'Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas' (CRPP) of the EPFL will remain an important recognized research facility until the start of the ITER operation foreseen in 2018. At the European level, the whole fusion research is coordinated and partly financed by the Joint Undertaking Fusion for Energy (JU F4E). The large flexibility of the TCV design and operation modus allow the creation and control of plasmas of various shapes, what is a very useful option to verify the results of numerical simulations. Besides, the hyper-frequency power density injected into the plasma is the highest ever recorded in the world. Research topics studied with the TCV include the stationary regimes in the tokamaks; a plasma current of more than 70 kA could be maintained, what represents an improvement by a factor of 3 to 4 of the confinement quality. For the first time in the world a configuration of the 'snowflake' type could be created and the power density on the wall of the vacuum chamber could be reduced accordingly. Numerical models allowed the analysis of turbulence and heat transport, of the magneto-hydrodynamic stability of the tokamaks and stellarators as well as the optimization of the magnetic confinement. Results concerning the so-called 'saw teeth' instability were experimentally confirmed on the Joint European Torus (JET). Theoretical researches were carried out on the fluctuations, turbulence and transport phenomena in the magnetized toric plasmas. At the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) the effect of the fast neutrons emitted by the fusion reactions on the walls of the fusion reactors was investigated. Irradiation simulations were carried out by means of the Swiss Spallation Neutron Source (SINQ). Various research projects at CRPP are directly related to ITER, like the development of the gyrotrons, the hyper-frequency wave launcher and the SULTAN facility to test the superconductors of ITER. Besides, the CRPP organized the 22^nd IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in Geneva in October 2008. The interest for rhodium as a material for the first mirror in ITER is growing. At the Basel University, thin layers of rhodium have been deposited on a polished surface by magnetron sputtering. The gas pressure during the deposition has an influence on the optical properties of the rhodium film. The layer survived under erosion conditions in real tokamaks but the reflectivity decreased after exposure. The mirror surface is cleaned by hydrogen glow discharges before detailed optical characterization. In the case of a molybdenum mirror exposed in the tokamak TEXTOR, the reflectivity could not be completely recovered because of the presence of molybdenum carbide at the interface between the molybdenum substrate and the carbon film. At the international level, the various research programmes on fusion are coordinated in the framework of EURATOM. The 'Implemented Agreements' (IA) of the International Energy Agency (IEA) cover numerous studies related to plasma physics, materials and socio-economical aspects of fusion energy. The Swiss researchers are involved in two of these IA, one on material research (EPFL and PSI) and the other on the interaction between plasma and reactor walls (Basel University)