At the 9th IAEA Technical Meeting on Energetic Particles in Magnetic Confinement Systems, 51 papers were presented as 16 invited talks, 13 oral presentations and 22 posters.

About half of the papers presented devoted themselves to Alfvén eigenmodes and their effects on energetic ion transport in tokamaks, helical devices or stellarators, and spherical tori. About one third discussed various diagnostics for energetic particle measurements. One paper discussed the generation of energetic electrons during plasma disruption.

The topics covered during the meeting are of great relevance to the successful operation of ITER and future fusion power plants. Studies on the instabilities generated by fast particles in plasma configurations that are of relevance for the continuous operation of ITER and of a fusion power plant have been reported. These were supported by innovative diagnostic techniques (some under development) which helped to benchmark numerical codes that can be applied to extrapolate understanding from today's devices to ITER. The observed characteristics of these instabilities have been proposed to be used as a diagnostic tool of the safety value q minimum, which provides useful information about plasma stability.

In a more technical note, the Alfvén cascades (ACs) or reversed shear Alfvén eigenmodes (RSAEs) in reversed shear plasmas were discussed in detail for the JET and the DIII-D tokamaks. Internal structures of these Alfvén eigenmodes (AEs) were successfully measured, for example by interferometry, reflectometry and beam emission spectroscopy. The numerical results by the MHD stability code NOVA-K, including energetic ion responses, were consistent with experimental observations in DIII-D. Moreover, ACs or RSAEs were recognized to be a powerful diagnostic tool to monitor the time evolution of the minimum q value in the reversed shear plasma. In the JT-60U tokamak, enhanced transport of energetic ions by RSAEs and toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes (TAEs ) was observed by neutron profile measurements. In CHS and LHD helical devices, magnetic bursts of energetic ion driven MHD modes such as EPM (energetic particle modes) and TAEs have shown enhancement re-distribution and/or loss of energetic ions in the regime of high beam beta. Spherical tori devices such as NSTX and MAST exhibited large varieties of energetic ion driven instabilities, that is, TAEs, EPMs, compressional AEs (CAEs) and others which are likely to exist in ITER.

Noticeable progress has been made in theories about AEs and non-linear interaction between energetic ions and MHD modes mostly using large numerical codes. Trend towards self-consistent, integrated, and non-perturbative calculations became more clear. Steady progress has been made in plasma diagnostics to measure energetic ion properties in plasmas with or without excitation of AEs, for example, gamma ray imaging for confined alpha measurement, D alpha spectroscopy for fast ion distribution function, scintillator probe and IR camera imaging for lost alpha measurement. The T-10 tokamak group presented the experimental results of generation of energetic electrons during current disruption. This topic is also very important for the safe operation of ITER.

In this meeting, a special discussion session was arranged in order to discuss the future direction of energetic particle research. Further convergence of experiment, theory, diagnostics, modeling and simulations are needed for a more complete understanding and precise control of energetic particles in a burning plasma. ITER plays a key role in accelerating energetic particle researches. On the other hand it should be noted that energetic particle researches can be driven forward regardless of magnetic configuration such as tokamaks, helical devices or stellarators, spherical tori or even linear devices.