More than 130 defenses, including 13 candidate’s and 8 doctoral dissertations defended in 2025, were held in the JINR Dissertation Councils after the resumption of their work in 2019. The youngest candidate of science at the Institute today is 24-year-old Ilia Nikolaichuk, a researcher at the Scientific and Experimental Department of Superconducting Magnets and Technologies at the Laboratory of High Energy Physics. In addition, in December, he received the Russian Government Award for young researchers in science and technology together with a VBLHEP JINR senior researcher Mikhail Shandov. Ilia Nikolaichuk shared his experience of successfully starting a scientific career.

“What is the subject of your dissertation?”

“My dissertation is devoted to the development and commissioning of a high-precision system for measuring the field parameters of structural magnets of accelerators. Its main feature is the use of a conductive string. I solved a number of tasks aimed at significantly improving the accuracy of measurements and expand the range of field parameters that can be measured by a single system”.

“What are your professional duties, and what changed about your work after you were honoured with the Government Award and the degree?”

“In addition to responsibilities related to superconducting magnets produced by our department, I am actively involved in tasks at the NICA Accelerator Complex, including the launch of the collider. I was conferred the academic degree and received the Government Award almost simultaneously, so it is difficult to assess my reaction to each of the events. They served as profound motivation to continue advancing in this field and gave us confidence that our work is truly important!”

“How did you manage to defend so early?”

“I joined JINR in 2019 as a second-year Dubna University student and started working towards my dissertation research after a couple of years. Achieving these results required great effort, but it was worth it. My supervisor, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Sergey Alexandrovich Kostromin, provided invaluable assistance at all stages of the preparation of my dissertation. His advice helped me prioritise effectively and speed up the achievement of my dissertation’s key objectives”.

“What are your research plans?”

“Our team is faced with the enormous task of launching the NICA Collider and obtaining its design parameters. In the next few years, this will create many interesting problems sometimes requiring unique solutions. So the plan is to immerse ourselves in new tasks without slowing down and hopefully succeed in tackling them!”