The contributor network
Coverage is produced by a network of 27 contributors — staff editors, contributing physicists, and program-affiliated reviewers — spanning 14 universities and national laboratories across North America, Europe, and Asia–Oceania. Among them: MIT PSFC, Princeton (PPPL), Wisconsin–Madison, Imperial College London, Oxford, ETH Zürich, Max Planck IPP (Greifswald and Garching), CEA Cadarache, EPFL Swiss Plasma Center, University of Tokyo, Seoul National University, UNSW Sydney, and ANU.
Contributors fall into three roles. Reporters file news and milestone coverage. Contributing physicists review technical claims before they enter the database — no performance figure ships without a named reviewer signing off. Regional correspondents track government programs and budget cycles in their jurisdiction. Every contributor with equity, grant, or advisory ties to a covered organization is recused from coverage of that organization; recusals are recorded in the byline metadata.
Capital — the four-source rule
A funding round is only published once we can corroborate it across at least three of four independent channels: (1) PitchBook or Crunchbase filings, (2) regulator filings (Form D in the US, Companies House in the UK, equivalent EU registries), (3) a direct disclosure from the company or a named lead investor, and (4) the Fusion Industry Association annual survey. When sources disagree, we publish the lower verified figure and flag the delta in the row footnote.
Cumulative totals include only equity and convertible instruments. Grants are tracked separately because they distort capital-efficiency math. SAFEs and bridge notes are marked as such; we do not roll an undisclosed SAFE into a "raised to date" headline.
Technical milestones — peer review gates everything
Plasma performance numbers (Q, triple product, pulse length, T_i, β_N) are only entered into the database from peer-reviewed publications — Nature, Nature Energy, Physics of Plasmas, Nuclear Fusion — or formal conference proceedings (APS-DPP, IAEA FEC, EPS Plasma Physics). A company press release is logged as a claim, displayed with a distinct visual treatment, and stays in claim-state until independent reproduction or publication.
Engineering milestones (magnet field strength, REBCO tape kilometers, target chamber commissioning) require either a peer-reviewed paper, a vendor PO disclosure, or direct site verification by a contributor. "Anonymous source familiar with the matter" never moves a milestone from claim to verified.
Government programs
ITER, NIF, EUROfusion, UKAEA (STEP), CFETR, BEST, JT-60SA, and DEMO budget and schedule figures come from primary program publications, national budget documents (DOE Congressional Budget Justification, BEIS/DESNZ command papers, Euratom work programmes, MEXT line items), and IAEA reports. Where a program publishes in a non-English primary language, the contributor in-country sources the original document; English-language summaries are cross-checked against it, not the other way around.
The compare model
Our company comparison tool is a transparent four-factor model. Weights default to the values below and are user-adjustable on the tool page:
- Capital efficiency — $/MJ-equivalent demonstrated · weight 0.30
- Technical readiness level — IAEA-aligned TRL 1–9 · weight 0.30
- Supply-chain risk — REBCO, tritium, low-activation alloys, neutron-tolerant first-wall · weight 0.20
- Timeline credibility — historical slip rate vs. published roadmap · weight 0.20
TRL is assigned by two reviewers independently; disagreements over a full level go to a third reviewer from the contributing-physicist pool. The TRL rubric is published alongside each company profile so readers can dispute a specific assignment, not an opaque score.
What we will not do
- Publish a "Top 10" ranking by raise size. Capital raised is not progress; we will not pretend it is.
- Run sponsored content as editorial. Sponsorships are labelled and live outside the news and analysis flow.
- Auto-generate company copy. Every profile is written and signed off by a human contributor.
- Quote a Q-value, gain, or net-energy claim without the experimental boundary conditions attached.
Corrections
Corrections are logged publicly with a timestamped diff against the original. Material corrections trigger a re-review by a second contributor and a note on the article header for 30 days. Email corrections@fusionenergynews.com — include the URL and, where possible, a primary source.