On 27 June, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia organized an excursion to the NICA Accelerator Complex for the winner of the quiz by the Ministry. The competition took place as part of the Science and Universities Day at the International Russia Exposition.

On 17 February 2024, the Russia Expo hosted the Science and Universities Day. At the plenary session of the event, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Chernyshenko presented a report on important results and achievements in science, technology, and higher education over the past six years. After his presentation, a quiz was organized among the students participating in the event. Tatyana Mitrofanova, a senior student at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU), managed to answer questions about the report’s details better and faster than anyone else. The Deputy Prime Minister personally presented the ticket for the scientific tour of the NICA Complex to the winner.

Accompanied by Deputy Head of the Science and Technology Popularisation Department of the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education Anastasia Gribkova and Deputy Head of the Spatial Development Department of the Ministry Egor Martynov, Tatyana Mitrofanova visited the factory of superconducting magnets. At the facility, an engineer of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics Alena Kotova told the guests about the design of superconducting magnets developed in Dubna, the assembling process of its modules, and leak tests.

A VBLHEP JINR leading researcher Sergei Merts gave the visitors a tour of the NICA Complex. The excursion started from the injection complex and continued to the collider and the MPD Detector, including the Synchrophasotron and SOChI, the applied research station. The guests were introduced to the history of JINR and VBLHEP, learned about the design and operation of the NICA accelerators and the scientific programme of the complex. The NICA Accelerator Complex is being implemented with the active support of Russia as part of the Science and Universities national project. After putting the NICA Collider into operation, scientists will be able to create in a laboratory environment the quark-gluon plasma, a special state of matter in which our Universe stayed shortly after the Big Bang.

Tatyana Mitrofanova shared her impressions of the visit to JINR. “After winning the quiz, I read articles about NICA on the Internet. This is a new project, and I was pleased to be among the first to visit the complex. I’d like to sincerely thank the organizers. The scale of scientific facilities that we visited is difficult to comprehend at once. I can’t even imagine the amount of human resources and work that have been invested in this project. All the people involved in the development and construction of the facility deserve a great credit. I wish that the launch of the complex will bring researchers new scientific discoveries!”

Tatyana Mitrofanova recently received a bachelor’s degree with honours in the field innovative management systems organization at the Faculty of Engineering Business and Management. This speciality is at the intersection of technical science and management. During her studies, Tatyana actively participated in scientific conferences and wrote scientific articles.