Present world fusion research programmes are directed ultimately towards the construction of a demonstration fusion reactor which should be a full ignition, high power device. These research programmes have merged recently with the signature of the ITER Agreement to conduct jointly the Engineering Design Activities (EDA) of ITER in preparation for construction. The programmatic objective of ITER is to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful purposes. This turning point in the fusion programmes has been reached as a result of the steady progress of the last decade and the realisation that the challenge in fusion research is to demonstrate sustained ignition in a next step machine. So far, near breakeven conditions have been achieved, with the JET tokamak achieving a fusion triple product, nitETi, of 8-9x1020 m­3 skeV and the first experiment in deuterium-tritium producing more than one megawatt of fusion power. However, these conditions could only be maintained transiently with MHD instabilities (such as giant sawteeth which induce disruptions, and vertical instabilities) and impurity influxes still limiting the achievement of better performance and steady state operation at high heating power.