A delegation from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), headed by Director General for the BMBF Department “Large Research Infrastructures, Energy and Basic Research”, Chairman of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Dr. Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolf visited the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research on 29–31 August 2012. She was accompanied by Head of Science and Education Department of the German Embassy Carsten Heinz and Professor Carl Oliver Kester (GSI, Darmstadt). A meeting at the JINR Directorate was held on 30 August. The German delegation was welcomed by JINR Director Academician Victor Matveev. Professor Carl Oliver Kester described the possible scenarios for cooperation between GSI and JINR. This was followed by an excursion to the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics, where the German guests were acquainted with progress on development of the NICA project and development of detectors for this accelerator complex. Director General for the BMBF Department “Large Research Infrastructures, Energy and Basic Research” Dr. Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolf noted that the visit made a deep impression on her. Possibilities and advantages of forthcoming cooperation, attraction of new partners, as well as funding issues were discussed at the general closing meeting.

The first memorandum governing interaction on projects FAIR and NICA, which JINR Director Academician Victor Matveev called a historic step, was signed on Friday, 31 August 2012. He also noted that since the NICA project should not be established only with efforts of JINR, this cooperation aims at the establishment of big international collaboration on development of the NICA project, and Germany is the potential partner for this. Concrete conditions required for such an expanded international participation, which the parties have to provide, were discussed at the general closing meeting.

VBLHEP Director Professor Vladimir Kekelidze said that there are two aspects that experts of JINR and GSI can implement together in the frames of expansion of the existing cooperation between JINR and GSI/FAIR (Germany). The first is the production of magnets based on the Dubna-technology developed for the Nuclotron. 175 magnets will be made for FAIR; it is planned that they will be tested in Dubna. And the second aspect, which is associated with one of the most important elements of detectors, is a so-called silicon tracker, which is provided at GSI, as well as at JINR.

Photo by Pavel Kolesov