ANR PEPR SupraFusion

Funding is available to French research teams for projects seeking to develop technologies and infrastructures for high temperature superconductors and to explore developments for their societal applications. 

The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR – National Research Agency) was first established in 2005 and is governed by the French Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche (MESR – Ministry of Higher Education and Research). It provides funding to public research organisations and universities, as well as to private companies, for both basic and applied research in all fields of science. Its goals include promoting creativity and openness as well as new ideas and partnerships, in particular between academia and industry. It also seeks to improve the competitiveness of French research in Europe and around the world.

Funded through the France 2030 investment plan, the French Government is supporting a Programme et Équipements Prioritaires de Recherche (PEPR – Priority Research Programme and Equipment) titled SupraFusion, dedicated to high temperature superconductors (HTS). The recent and rapid development of REBCO HTS, which have become a high performance commercial product, constitutes a potentially important breakthrough for societal applications of superconductivity. The performance of HTS could create a paradigm shift, by enabling in particular the design of compact magnetic fusion reactors, accelerating the arrival of electricity sourced from fusion energy. HTS could also lead to important advances in other domains, including electric networks, wind energy, medical imaging, low carbon transport, high energy physics and high-field materials science. These changes have driven the creation of PEPR SupraFusion, led by the CEA and the CNRS. The programme aims to develop a French technological sector in the domain of HTS applications by using magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) as a motor for research and innovation. 

PEPR SupraFusion is based upon a large network of laboratories, each contributing to different HTS and magnetic fusion advances. They cover the entire value chain, from basic research to industrial application.

The current call for proposals, operated by ANR, has the objective of constructing ambitious, original and structuring projects that will strenghthen research and development activities in line with the objectives of PEPR SupraFusion. Projects funded under the call are intended to supplement the activities of the PEPR’s five target projects (detailed in Annex 2 of the call document) by providing support for specific aspects of the project, providing new experimental or digital methods (modelling), and opening up new areas of research, in particular on societal applications. The call also aims to broaden the perimeter of teams involved in the programme. 

Projects may address one of the following research areas:

1. Development of technologies and infrastructures for REBCO tape HTS; tools of an innovative character.
2. Developments for HTS societal applications (MRI, applications for the electrical network, wind power, transport, magnetic fusion etc): the objective is to rethink applications and needs to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by HTS.