The 26th International Baikal Summer School on the Physics of Elementary Particles and Astrophysics took place from 11 to 18 July 2026, in Bolshiye Koty Village, Irkutsk Region, on the territory of the Baikal Biological Station of Irkutsk State University (ISU). The organizers are the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and ISU. For the second year, the Teach-in educational platform provides sponsorship for lecturers and Moscow State Univesity students.
This year, 99 attendees from Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Russia, Rwanda, and Uzbekistan took part in the school. The programme was particularly rich: lectures, talks by students, a poster session, scientific discussions, and projects developed under tutors’ guidance.
The lectures covered various topics: cosmology, introduction to particle physics, supernova and nuclear physics, gravity, black holes, neutrino physics and telescopes for registering ultra-high-energy neutrinos, modelling software tools, vortex states, and more. The lecturers were leading employees of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems at JINR, the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, RAS Institute of Astronomy, Lebedev Physical Institute, RAS Institute of Applied Physics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and ITMO University.
“The Baikal School is a full-fledged scientific and educational platform where students and young researchers listen to leading specialists, discuss real problems of modern physics, work on group projects, and present their own results. An important feature of the event is that it combines particle physics, neutrino physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and the methods of modelling and data analysis. This interdisciplinary training is precisely what young people need today for participation in major scientific experiments. The Baikal School is a school of life, too: the participants see how their senior colleagues approach scientific work. This can prove more important than the actual information absorbed during the week”, DLNP JINR Deputy Director, Organizing Committee Co-chair Dmitry Naumov shared his vision.
“Over the years of organizing the school, I have seen more than once how it changed students’ lives. Here, on Baikal shore, young researchers found experienced scientific supervisors, opening doors to the best scientific centres around the world. Arriving at a scientific organization thousands of kilometres from home, you suddenly meet a colleague and understand: they are “one of us”, one of Baikal School participants. An invisible but very strong thread of shared memories binds us all forever”, Co-chair of the Baikal School Organizing Committee Irina Perevalova noted.
Background information
The Baikal Summer School on the Physics of Elementary Particles and Astrophysics was created jointly by Irkutsk State University and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The event aims to provide students, postgraduates, and young scientists an opportunity to learn about the modern aspects of particle physics and astrophysics from leading theoretical and experimental physicists, as well as to network and choose a research direction. The school takes place annually in the small picturesque Bolshiye Koty Village on the shore of Lake Baikal.
Photos by Alexandra Ivanova, Artem Konovalov, Marina Mishchenko, and Roman Monkhoyev
