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Abstract. This paper presents an overview of the results obtained during the Joint Experiments (JE) organized in the framework of the IAEA Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on "Joint Research Using Small Tokamaks" (JRUST) that have been carried out on the tokamaks CASTOR at IPP Prague, Czech Republic (2005), T-10 at RRC "Kurchatov Institute", Moscow, Russia (2006) and the most recent one at ISTTOK at IST, Lisbon, Portugal, in 2007.. Experimental programmes were aimed to diagnose and characterize the core and the edge plasma turbulence in a tokamak in order to investigate correlations between the occurrence of transport barriers, improved confinement, electric fields and electrostatic turbulence using advanced diagnostics with high spatial and temporal resolution. On CASTOR and ISTTOK, electric fields were generated by biasing an electrode inserted into the edge plasma and an improvement of the global particle confinement induced by the electrode positive biasing has been observed. Geodesic Acoustic Modes were studied using heavy ion beam diagnostics (HIBD) on T-10 and ISTTOK and correlation reflectometry on T-10. ISTTOK is equipped with gallium jet injector and the technical feasibility of gallium jets interacting with plasmas has been investigated in pulsed and AC operation. The first JEs have clearly demonstrated that small tokamaks are suitable for broad international cooperation to conduct dedicated joint research programmes. Other activities within the IAEA CRP on JRUST are also overviewed.

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Small tokamaks may significantly contribute to the better understanding of phenomena in a wide range of fields such as plasma confinement and energy transport; plasma stability in different magnetic configurations; plasma turbulence and its impact on local and global plasma parameters; processes at the plasma edge and plasma-wall interaction; scenarios of additional heating and non-inductive current drive; new methods of plasma profile and parameter control; development of novel plasma diagnostics; benchmarking of new numerical codes and so on. Furthermore, due to the compactness, flexibility, low operation costs and high skill of their personnel small tokamaks are very convenient to develop and test new materials and technologies. Small tokamaks are suitable and important for broad international cooperation, providing the necessary environment and manpower to conduct dedicated joint research programmes. In addition, the experimental work on small tokamaks is very appropriate for the education of students, scientific activities of postgraduate students and for the training of personnel for large tokamaks. The first Joint (Host Laboratory) Experiment (JE1) has been carried out in 2005 on the CASTOR tokamak at the IPP Prague, Czech Republic. It was jointly organized by the IPP-ASCR and KFKI HAC, Budapest, involved 20 scientists from 7 countries and was supported through the IAEA and the ICTP, Trieste. The objective of JE1 was to perform studies of plasma edge turbulence and plasma confinement. Following the success of JE1, JE2 has been performed on T-10 at RRC "Kurchatov Institute" in Moscow; 30 scientists from 13 countries participated in this experiment. This experiment aimed to continue JE1 turbulence studies, now extending them to the plasma core. Results of JE1 and JE2 will be overviewed and compared.

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