The basic science research has already been conducted.
What is being done now could be viewed as engineering, as the goal is to scale the process to a large size, such that the system may deliver a 10x return on the power going into it.
When we have an experimental reactor that produces electricity reliably, then the engineering can start. Up till that point it is still science research. There is engineering involved, but the engineering is being used to construct an experiment.
edit - and ITER has not been inspiring confidence. They seem to be massively bogged down at the moment, though we shall see if anything picks up now that they have swapped management and are trying to rebuild the organization.
What is being done now could be viewed as engineering, as the goal is to scale the process to a large size, such that the system may deliver a 10x return on the power going into it.
http://www.iter.org/proj/itermission