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Open-sourcing IMAS: status, opportunities and challenges

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ITER Organization
ITER Organization

ITER’s Integrated Modelling & Analysis Suite (IMAS) is the collection of physics software and associated tooling that supports the development of the ITER Research Plan and will be used to interpret and analyse ITER’s measurement data once operations start. Although IMAS is not yet complete, it has matured to the point where the focus is shifting from developing an enabling infrastructure to enhancing integrated physics modelling capabilities. Whilst many researchers within the ITER Members already have access to IMAS software and resources via collaborations with the ITER Organization (IO), since December 2024 it has been agreed that the IO can release its generated intellectual property as open source, which is a great step forward and aligns with the wishes of many in the fusion community. This talk will present the current status of IMAS as an open-source software ecosystem developed to support ITER’s Research Plan, along with its associated opportunities, challenges, and relevance to other experiments and fusion ventures. Beginning with an explanation of what IMAS is and why it was developed from ITER’s perspective, this presentation will describe the present status of the open-sourcing of IMAS and access via https://github.com/iterorganization, as well as future plans. Various use cases will be described to sketch its potential and benefits for the broader fusion community beyond ITER. The presentation will finish with some of the new challenges that come with developing in a completely open environment, including adopting a new mindset, managing contributions, and general governance to bring fusion research further into the open science era.

Repository

https://github.com/iterorganization