The International School of Fusion Reactor Technology started its courses 15 years ago and since then has mantained a biennial pace. Generally, each course has developed the subject which was announced in advance at the closing of the previous course. The subject to which the present proceedings refer was chosen in violation of that rule so as to satisfy the recent and diffuse interest in cold fusion among the main European laboratories involved in controlled thermonuclear research (CTR). In the second half of 1986 we started to prepare a workshop aimed at assessing the state of the art and possibly of the perspectives of muon- catalyzed fusion. Research in this field has recently produced exciting experimental results open to important practical applications. We thought it worthwhile to consider also the beneficial effects and problems of the polarization ofthe nuclei in both cold and thermonuclear fusion. In preparing the 8th Course on Fusion Reactor Technology, it was necessary to abandon the traditional course format because the influence of the workshop procedure was inevitable: the participants were roughly equally divided into experts in cold fusion and experts in thermonuclear fusion. The course had largely an interdisciplinary character as many disciplines were involved: atomic and molecular physics, nuclear physics, accelerator technology, system analysis, etc. Plasma physics was excluded, with a sigh of relief from the experts in thermonuclear fusion.

The Erice International School of Fusion Reactor Techno logy held its 1981 course on - Unconventional Approaches to Fusion - in combination with the IAEA Technical Committee meeting on - Critical Analysis of Alternative Fusion Concepts -. The two events took place in the second half of March with an overlap of a few days only. The present proceedings include the first week's papers; those presented during the second week will be summarised in Nuclear Fusion. Right from the beginning of the course, and in particular In R. Carruthers' opening talk, it was clear that an uncon ventional approach was considered stimulating insofar as its con ception presented advantageous aspects with respect to the To kamak. Indeed the Tokamak was recognized as an - imper fect frame of reference- (K. H. Schmitter) in the sense that, al though it deserves to be considered as a frame of reference for the other devices because it is the most advanced in the scientific demonstration of controlled thermonuclear fusion, as a fusion reactor, however, the Tokamak does not seem to be completely satisfactory either from an economic or from an operational point of view, if compared with that - enticing ogre -, the proven fission reactor (less enticing to the public). Comparison of a Tokamak reactor with a PWR can be founded on considerations of such a basic nature that it becomes almost automatic to ask how far the various unconventional ap proaches to fusion are exempt from the Tokamak's drawbacks."