Directorship
The main fields of JINR’s activity are theoretical and experimental studies in elementary particle physics, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics. The research policy of JINR is determined by the Scientific Council, which consists of eminent scientists from the Member States as well as famous researchers from China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Switzerland, the USA, and the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN).
There are 7 Laboratories at JINR, by the scope of scientific activities each being compatible with a large research institution. JINR’s staff totals about 5000 people, including more than 1200 scientists, 2000 engineers and technicians.
Available at the Institute is a unique choice of experimental facilities. They include: the only in Europe and Asia superconducting accelerator of nuclei and heavy ions the Nuclotron, the U-400 and U-400M cyclotrons used for experiments on the synthesis of heavy and exotic nuclei, the unique IBR-2 reactor used for nuclear physics research with neutrons and condensed matter studies, and a proton accelerator – the phasotron that is used for ray therapy. JINR possesses powerful high productive computing environment that is integrated in the world computer network through high speed communication channels. In 2009 the communication channel “Dubna-Moscow” was launched with the initial capacity of 20 Gbit/s.
In the late 2008 a new basic facility – IREN-I – was successfully launched. The facility is to be used for the studies in nuclear physics with the time-of-flight method in the neutron energy range up to hundreds keV.
The Nuclotron-M project is also successfully progressing. It is to become the basis for the new superconducting collider NICA. The heavy ion complex DRIBs-II is actively under construction as well. According to the schedule, the spectrometer complex is upgraded of the IBR-2Mreactor which is included into the 20-year European strategic programme of research in neutron scattering.
The concept of the seven-year plan for the JINR development in 2010-2016 envisages concentration of resources for upgrading the accelerator and reactor base of the Institute and integration of its basic facilities into the common system of the European scientific infrastructure.
One of the main aspects of JINR’s activity is its extensive international scientific and technical cooperation: it collaborates with nearly 700 research centres and universities in 64 countries of the world. Only in Russia – the largest JINR partner – the cooperation is conducted with 150 research centres, universities, industrial enterprises and firms from 43 Russian cities.
A bright example is the long-standing collaboration between JINR and CERN, which contributes to a range of theoretical and experimental work in high-energy physics. The considerable contribution to the implementation of the ambitious project of the century – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project made by JINR has been highly esteemed by the world scientific community. JINR fulfilled successfully and timely all responsibilities in the design and construction of elements for the ATLAS, CMS, ALICE detectors and LHCmachine. The Central Information Computing Centre of the Institute is actively used to solve the tasks related to experiments at the LHC and other scientific projects that demand large-scale calculations.