On 11 January, at approximately 10:40 PM, a stable xenon beam circulated the lower ring of the collider for more than 100 microseconds. Deputy Head of the VBLHEP JINR Accelerator Division Anatoly Sidorin discussed NICA’s progress and plans.

The document covers primary directions of the JINR research and international cooperation for 2026. It was adopted at the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the Governments of the JINR Member States in Varadero, Cuba, in December 2025.

Applications for the next session are accepted at start.jinr.ru from 1 February until 2 March. The programme is intended for students who finished the third year of the bachelor’s course, master’s students, and first-year PhD students.

Until 30 January, the JINR Science and Technology Library is hosting a new exhibition. Readers can find textbooks, reminiscences of JINR researchers, popular science literature, and a booklet on JINR–Cuba cooperation.

A new post series in the JINR Telegram Channel is dedicated to explaining words that scientists use. This week’s term is relaxation.

On 12 January, the Deputy Director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems met with students of the School 690 of Saint Petersburg, Russia. You can watch the recording via the link.

New Year’s congratulations

Researchers of the Institute’s international team shared greetings in their native languages. In addition, the JINR Telegram channel shared a card inspired by the painting of Dmitry Ivanovich Blokhintsev, the first JINR Director.

The JINR Universal Public Library is hosting a Dmitry Blokhintsev tribute evening and a lecture by FLNP JINR Director Advisor Marina Frontasyeva about the results of the 2022 Arctic Floating University expedition.

As part of the Big Challenges programme at the Sirius Educational Centre, schoolchildren created a prototype of a modular muon detector. JINR specialists installed the device near the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant and are scaling the prototype to be used in studies at Lake Baikal.

We invite you to watch a recording of the seminar “JUNO Experiment: 10 years later” by Dmitry Naumov.

On 5 and 6 January, the JINR Sports Club hosted a tennis doubles tournament dedicated to the memory of Academician Dmitry Shirkov. Congratulations to the athletes on their successful performances!

The Archimedes Pool hosted an open city championship. The participants were more than 300 athletes representing 10 cities.

Advisory Bodies

• 19–20 January, 62nd Meeting of Programme Advisory Committee for Condensed Matter Physics. JINR, Dubna

Seminars

• 15 January. 11:00 AM. VBLHEP. “Development of systems for controlling and preserving the polarisation of protons and deuterons in the injection complex of the NICA Collider” by Evgeny Tsyplakov

Culture

• 13 January – 8 February. Daily from 1:00 to 7:00 PM (except Monday). JINR Mir Cultural Centre. “PLAY” exhibition by sculptor Sergey Serezhin
• 15 January. 7:00 PM. JINR Universal Public Library. Summer Reading List book club
• 16 January. 6:00 PM. JINR Universal Public Library. JINR Cinema Club
• 16 January. 6:30 PM. JINR Universal Public Library. Event commemorating Dmitry Blokhintsev
• 17 January. 5:00 PM. JINR Universal Public Library. Arctic Air lecture
• 17 January. 6:00 PM. JINR Mir Cultural Centre. Performance by Victor Sukhorukov