On 2 February 2018, the meeting of the Supervisory Board of the NICA mega-science project was held in the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics. It is a supreme body of management and control over implementation of the project. Its activities are specified by the Regulations adopted in November 2016 at the session of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries. The Board includes four representatives of the Russian Federation – from the Ministry of Finance, from the Ministry of Education and Science, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, from the Government of the Moscow Region – as well as representatives of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

The first meeting took place on 20 November 2016 in Krakow. Chairman of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries L.Kostov, JINR Director V. Matveev, Head of the Project Directorate G. Trubnikov, Head of the project V. Kekelidze participated in the meeting. The second meeting of the Supervisory Board was held with an extended participation. Participants of this meeting were RAS President A. Sergeev, Deputy Minister of Education and Science G. Trubnikov, representatives of the Government of the Russian Federation, JINR Director V. Matveev, Plenipotentiary of the Bulgarian Government L. Kostov, Head of the JINR Directorate Richard Lednický, Head of the project V. Kekelidze, JINR Chief Scientific Secretary A.Sorin.

On the eve of the meeting, VBLHEP Director, Head of the NICA project Vladimir Kekelidze in the interview to journalists noted: “We have been preparing for the report. An extensive work has been done to estimate the work done and to refine plans”.

Grigory Trubnikov, Deputy Minister of Education and Science, RF representative in the Supervisory Board, being interviewed said: “Today, we are making, so to say, a fateful decision for the NICA mega science project. It concerns the programme of the project development for the next few years. Decisions touch upon the structure of governing bodies of the project, finance, the draft of the scientific programme and the plan of construction. Obviously, certain changes in some technical issues have taken place since the beginning of construction in 2016 (officially launched by the governmental decree). During this time, technical progress in the world and Dubna, in particular, was made. Thus, we should conform to the latest developments of the last two years. In fact, today we are specifying configuration of the project and adopting the programme of the project development for the next 2 – 3 years”.

The supervisory Committee members visited the Factory of Super Conducting Magnets, the NICA site, the synchrophasotron where booster assembling is now under way. Participants of the meeting visited the BM@N facility as well at which experiments have been already launched at the Nuclotron ejected beams. Experts were told about construction of the MPD detector and development of the SPD detector. We would like to remind that according to the agreement between the Russian Federation and JINR, the NICA complex in its basic configuration has been brought into operation stage by stage since 2016. Such regime will be preserved until 2020. The first experiment at colliding beams with the MPD detector will start data taking in 2021. Construction of the SPD detector is planned for 2020. The Centre for Innovative Developments of NICA with its engineering infrastructure and computer complex must be brought into operation until 2021.

Galina Myalkovskaya, JINR Weekly Newspaper
Photo by Igor Lapenko