On 2 October 2023, the NICA Days 2023 International School started in a mixed format at the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Belgrade, Serbia. At the event, leading scientists will deliver their reports on the status of the NICA Project and its experimental facilities such as BM@N, MPD, and SPD. The School aims to attract new scientists and students to the creation of the NICA Accelerator Complex.

At the opening of the School, JINR Vice Director Vladimir Kekelidze said, “The NICA Megascience Project aims to shed light on blind sports in our understanding of elementary particle physics. On such really important questions in this scientific field as how quarks act and behave, how they become part of the nucleon, how nucleon spin is composed. To answer these questions, we need to build a modern accelerator complex, detectors, and corresponding infrastructure. It is necessary to collect and analyse a large amount of data. Dealing with these issues is a big challenge, a number of demanding tasks. The world’s leading scientists will present solutions to these problems in their reports. Hundreds of scientists and engineers are involved in the implementation of the NICA Project. We hope that more postgraduate students and young scientists will join this project. We expect that NICA Days will attract new participants from Serbian institutions. Furthermore, we will strengthen our cooperation, and I am sure that the joint implementation of the NICA Project will significantly contribute to the science of both sides.”

Snežana Pajović, Director of the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, welcomed the audience as well. She noted that the Institute celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2023 and said, “International cooperation is a key component of the Institute’s development. I would like to emphasise that we are very proud of traditional and long-standing collaboration with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. It is my pleasure to emphasise that scientists from the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences are participating in the organization of the NICA Days 2023 School in the year of our jubilee. Serbian scientists are involved in both the MPD and SPD collaborations. It is a great privilege and opportunity for our science.”

At the event, speakers will deliver a series of lectures focused on the overview of physical phenomena studied in heavy ion collisions and experimental methods used to measure signals interesting for physicists that are relevant to the NICA Project. Reports are intended for engineers and students involved in heavy ion physics and the design and creation of equipment for NICA experiments. The Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences and JINR are organizers of the event.

The working language of the School is English. The School will end on 3 October 2023. The event precedes the 12th Collaboration Meeting of the MPD Experiment that will take place in Belgrade on 4-6 October.