Metromecánica wins 2025 Fusion Technology Transfer Award for ITER-to-automotive metrology

Fusion for Energy (F4E), together with EUROfusion and the European Commission, announced on 25 February 2026 that Spanish SME Metromecánica has won the 2025 Fusion Technology Transfer Award and will receive a EUR 10,000 prize for adapting an ITER robotic metrology tool to the automotive industry. The F4E news page names the three awarding organisations and ties the prize explicitly to the company’s ITER-to-automotive conversion work.

The technology’s origin and the company’s development path are described on the F4E page: the system was originally designed to inspect ITER components, and "Building on its experience, Metromecánica adapted the system to automotive production, accounting for different materials and upscaling constraints." The announcement includes the visual credit line, "The company adapted a robotic metrology tool from ITER to the automotive industry. ©Metromecánica," underlining the provenance of the hardware and the company’s claim of direct lineage from ITER inspection tooling.

Fusion for Energy’s release emphasizes deployment and industrial uptake as the award criteria. According to the page, "The technology has now been deployed by major suppliers in the industry, demonstrating its scalability and suitability for new contexts." The F4E statement frames that deployment as evidence the tool moved beyond laboratory validation into operational production lines, although the announcement does not name the suppliers or give contract values.

F4E also highlights the commercial and employment impacts attributed to Metromecánica’s adaptation. The page states, "Thanks to this out-of-the-box application, the company strengthened its competitiveness and entered new markets, supporting the creation of skilled jobs in engineering and software development." F4E concludes with the award rationale: "These reasons earned Metromecánica the Fusion Technology Transfer Award. The prize recognises its ability to transform an ITER tool into a commercially viable industrial solution, which shows the wider impact of fusion R&D."

The F4E page situates the award inside its institutional role, identifying Fusion for Energy as "the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy." Contact and administrative details on the same page list Fusion for Energy at c/ Josep Pla, nº 2, Torres Diagonal Litoral, Edificio B3, 08019 Barcelona, Spain, with contact: info@f4e.europa.eu, and the page carries the copyright line, "© 2026 European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy ('Fusion for Energy')."

The announcement also directs readers to a related information source for award procedures: "For more detailed information on eligibility criteria, the basis for judging, nomination process and a list of past award recipients, please visit this IEEE webpage and go to the 'Fusion Technology Awards' section." That embedded IEEE text on the F4E page includes procedural language such as, "Equal consideration will be given to innovation across all fusion approaches and outstanding leadership in the fusion community," and the administrative instruction that nomination packages be sent to the Fusion Technology Committee Awards Chair, Dr. Trey Gebhart, with the explicit deadline: "The nomination deadline for the 2026 Fusion Technology Award is 13 March 2026."

The F4E announcement leaves several follow-up facts unlisted: the names of the "major suppliers" using the adapted metrology system, technical specifications of the robotic tool, the number and location of jobs created, and any commercial terms. Reporters or stakeholders seeking those specifics can contact Fusion for Energy at info@f4e.europa.eu or consult the European Fusion Technology Marketplace highlighted on the F4E page for further examples of fusion-derived breakthroughs.