The current magnetic confinement nuclear fusion power reactor concepts going beyond ITER are based on assumptions about the availability of materials with extreme mechanical, heat, and neutron load capacity. In Europe, the development of such structural and armour materials together with the necessary production, machining, and fabrication technologies is pursued within the EFDA long-term fusion materials programme. This paper reviews the progress of work within the programme in the area of tungsten and tungsten alloys. Results, conclusions, and future projections are summarized for each of the programme´s main subtopics, which are: (1) fabrication, (2) structural W materials, (3) W armour materials, and (4) materials science and modelling. It gives a detailed overview of the latest results on materials research, fabrication processes, joining options, high heat flux testing, plasticity studies, modelling, and validation experiments

Highly efficient energy conversion and storage technologies such as high‐temperature solid oxide fuel and electrolysis cells, all‐solid‐state batteries, gas separation membranes, and thermal barrier coatings for advanced turbine systems depend on advanced materials. In all cases, processing of ceramics and metals starting from powders plays a key role and is often a challenging task. Depending on their composition, such powder materials often require high sintering temperatures and show an inherent risk of abnormal grain growth, evaporation, chemical reaction, or decomposition, especially in the case of long dwelling times. Electric current‐assisted sintering (ECAS) techniques are promising to overcome these restrictions, but a lot of fundamental and practical challenges must be solved properly to take full advantage of these techniques. A broad and long‐term expertise in the field of ECAS techniques and comprehensive facilities including conventional field‐assisted sintering technology/spark plasma sintering (FAST/SPS), hybrid FAST/SPS (with additional heater), sinter forging, and flash sintering (FS) devices are available at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research: Materials Synthesis and Processing (IEK‐1). Herein, main advantages and challenges of these techniques are discussed and the concept to overcome current limitations is introduced on selected examples.