Although actions promoting sustainable energy production and consumption have been widely approached in the literature, the management of the big scientific projects devoted to these actions have not been considered as a matter of study from the perspective of sustainable development, but almost exclusively from the scientific or technical ones. Experiences all over the world are increasingly demonstrating that the impact of the project phase is more critical than expected. In this sense, the joint international research on clean and more efficient nuclear power, especially fusion, is currently focused on two large projects: ITER and IFMIF-DONES. Although ITER is step by step advancing, IFMIF-DONES still has a long way before it is actually implemented and its main target (the evaluation of the materials to build the future nuclear fusion reactors) is achieved. In this work, the different steps focused on IFMIF-DONES funding and management planning up to date are analysed and, departing from them, some key points on the future development of the project are proposed.