In the shift of June 2022, JINR became a partner of the programme “School league“, the purpose of which is the early career guidance for schoolchildren, development of research and engineering skills, popularisation of science and technology among young people. In the frames of this programme, the Nanograd forum has been organized since 2010, the purpose of which is to develop the project and research culture of schoolchildren in a high-tech society. In 2022, the forum was held from 16 June to 26 June in Saint Petersburg.

Representatives of the JINR University Centre and the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics were experts in the frames of the poster defence of participants’ projects. The objective was to make a presentation of the project on solving a possible scientific and technological problem and developing a communication strategy for its promotion on the market of a certain industry.

In addition, at the Nanograd Academy, a VBLHEP leading researcher Sergey Merts delivered the lecture “NICA: back to the future”. At the meeting, forum participants learned about each of the seven laboratories of the Institute, the fundamental and applied research carried out in them. Nanograd residents got acquainted with the operation principles of the NICA accelerator complex, the systems that are part of it, and the results that scientists plan to get at it.

An online tour of the NICA accelerator complex was organized as well, which was given by Alexander Tikhomirov, a leading engineer of VBLHEP, demonstrating in real time the Heavy-Ion Linear Accelerator (HILAC), as well as the first and second rings of the accelerator complex: the Booster and the Nuclotron.