With a number of next-step fusion devices currently being implemented, such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, and in view of the concomitant need to demonstrate the technological feasibility of fusion power plants as well as the economical viability of this method of energy production, the fusion community is now facing new challenges. The resolution of these challenges will dictate research orientations in the present and coming decades.

The scientific scope of this special issue is, therefore, intended to reflect the priorities of this new era in fusion energy research. The scopes are a platform for sharing the results of research and development efforts in both national and international fusion experiments that have been shaped by these new priorities and thereby help in pinpointing worldwide advances in fusion theory, experiments, technology, engineering, safety, and socioeconomics. Furthermore, this special issue will also set these results against the backdrop of the requirements for a net energy producing fusion device and a fusion power plant in general, and it will thus help in defining the way forward.

With the participation of international organizations such as the ITER International Organization, as well as the collaboration of more than forty countries and several research institutes, including those working on smaller plasma devices, it is expected that this special issue will, as in the past, serve to identify possibilities and means for a continuous effective international collaboration. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Analytical applications
• Molecularly imprinted polymers and their applications
• Material engineering in magnetic confinement devices
• Magnetic confinement theory and simulation
• ITER activities
• Inertial fusion experiments and theory
• Innovative confinement concepts

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