On 26 January 2022, a scientific and methodological seminar on applied research at the NICA complex was held at VBLHEP by the Department of Scientific and Methodological Research and Innovation. The event was held both online and in-person and brought together more than 50 participants from scientific and scientific-production institutes, including JINR, FGBU “NMIC of Radiology” of the Ministry of Health of Russia, A. TSyb MRRC – a branch of FGBU “NMIC of Radiology” of the Ministry of Health of Russia, ZAO “Protom”, A.I. Alikhanov ITEP NRC “Kurchatov Institute”, NRNU MEPhI, Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

During the seminar, reports were presented on the advantages of the NICA complex for applied research, the development and production of accelerator equipment for radiotherapy, the practices of medical radiological centres for the treatment of oncological diseases, developments in the field of high-temperature superconductivity.

Head of Department No. 5 of Scientific and Methodological Research and Innovation at VBLHEP S. Tutunnikov welcomed participants of the seminar. Deputy Head of the VBLHEP Department of Scientific and Methodological Research and Innovation O. Belov reported on the development of cooperation and elements of the scientific programme of international collaborations on applied research at the NICA complex. An employee of A. TSyb Medical Radiological Research Centre V. Saburov presented a report on the status of proton therapy at the Prometheus complex. ZAO “Protom” researcher A. Pryanichnikov spoke about the development of synchrotrons for proton therapy. Head of the Scientific and Experimental Department of New Accelerators at DLNP G. Karamysheva reported on the status of the superconducting cyclotron project at JINR. Senior researcher of the VBLHEP Accelerator Department M. Novikov presented information on current tasks and the start of R&D on HTS magnets for particle accelerators at JINR.

President of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of Uzbekistan in JINR B. Yuldashev took part in the general discussion held on the results of the reports. He spoke about the interest of the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Tashkent) in joint work in a number of fields. To develop further cooperation, the issues were discussed on institutes interested in joining international ARIADNA collaborations on the use of charged particle beams of the NICA complex in various fields of applied research. This includes the development of methodological approaches related to the production of accelerator equipment for medical physics and increasing the effectiveness of radiation therapy. We have reached an agreement on the organization of future mutual visits between a number of institutes that participated in the seminar. We highlighted the defining role of the discussions in determining the programme of further scientific and methodological research on the database of the institutes.

Participants of the event agreed to elaborate on the joint initiatives outlined during the discussion and the possibility of holding a scientific and methodological seminar on the topics presented on a regular basis.