Contents With this Special Issue, we are publishing 81 peer-reviewed manuscripts, a selection from the best work presented in June 2019 at the 28th IEEE Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE), Jacksonville, FL, USA. This is the sixth SOFE Special Issue that IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (TPS) has published, a tradition that started with the 2009 SOFE in order to afford attendees the opportunity to publish an expanded version of their oral or poster presentations in a refereed journal. It has become a popular option. With each successive SOFE, more authors take advantage of the possibility offered by TPS to have their conference papers gain wider exposure and be cited by others working in fusion engineering and its related disciplines. Readers benefit as well. For example, this issue features a total of 22 papers on ITER and Wendelstein 7-X, a unique collection of papers on two projects that sit at the forefront of fusion engineering.
More than ever, progress toward fusion energy depends on excellence in fusion engineering. Systems are becoming more complex, performance requirements more demanding, and expectations for improved economics more urgent. Whenever we are presenting a paper at SOFE or critiquing it as an audience member or poster visitor, and whenever we are an author or a referee for a Special Issue paper, we have a role to play in upholding the increasingly higher standards required of us.
Conference organizers and editors play an even broader role. We are indebted to General Chair, Dennis Youchison, and Program Chair, Brad Nelson, for their leadership of a successful SOFE—2019. I especially want to thank our international team of Guest Editors—Stephan Bosch (Germany), Shishir Deshpande (India), Ingo Kuehn (ITER), Xiadong Mao and Yican Wu (China), Martin Nieto (Mexico), Elizabeth Surrey (United Kingdom), Arnold Lumsdaine and Greg Wallace (U.S.A.), our assistant Pamela Serai (U.S.A.), and the TPS staff—for their work in compiling this publication. This Special Issue is the final technical deliverable of an effort that began three years with the kickoff of SOFE—2019 planning. Our goal has been to raise the bar by at least a notch. It is now up to you, dear reader, to be the judge.