Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Ministry of Education and Science to contribute 3,9 billion rubles to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research for development and implementation of NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider Faсility), a complex of superconducting rings at colliding heavy-ion beams. The corresponding decree was published on Saturday, 16 December 2017, on the governmental website.
“The Ministry of Education and Science jointly with the Ministry of Finance are to make a contribution of 3962120,2 thousand rubles to the international intergovernmental scientific research organization the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in 2017 at the cost of budget allocations,”- the document states.
NICA is one of the six mega-science projects in Russia. In its frameworks, a collider will be constructed at the territory of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The collider will allow, as scientists hope, to ascertain how protons and neutrons appeared in the Universe shortly after the Big Bang as well as to learn more about matter’s behavior in the area of superhigh energy in the state of the Quark-Gluon Plasma.
The construction of NICA started on 25 March 2016 by laying the first stone in Dubna. The first launch of the collider on partial capacity is planned on 2019; the collider will run on full capacity in 2023.