On 12 – 14 December 2018, a visit to JINR of a delegation from the Republic of Korea was held. Representatives of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning visited JINR: Hyohee Lee, Director of the Planning and Coordination Division, and Seog Hyung Kim, Senior Researcher of the Division. The Korean delegation was also represented by Seung Woo Hong, Head of the RAON Liaison Center, Professor of the Department of Physics of the Sungkyunkwan University, and Changbum Moon, President of the RAON User Association, Professor of the Display Engineering of the Hoseo University.

The visit of the Korean delegation started in the JINR Visit Centre with a welcoming presentation on organization and fields of research of the Institute after which the guests continued acquaintance with JINR in the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions. The guests learned about the Factory of superheavy elements, the ACCULINA-2 separator of radioactive nuclei and the nanocentre. Prof. Seung Woo Hong held the seminar “The RAON project status” in FLNR devoted to the construction of a new Korean accelerator of radioactive ions and preparation of first experiments. Prospects for cooperation between FLNR and RAON were the subject of the lively discussion at the seminar. The discussion resulted in several practical proposals.

Acquaintance of the delegation with the JINR scientific infrastructure was continued in the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics where the guests visited the NICA construction site, the BM@N detector as well as the Factory of superconducting magnets. A workshop was held in the NICA-hall participants of which also outlined several offers on cooperation development.

Representatives of the Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics and the Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics took part in the programme of the visit of the Korean delegation. The visit was concluded in the JINR Visit Centre by a meeting of the delegation with the leadership of the JINR University Centre and the branch of SINP MSU.

Photos by Igor Lapenko, JINR Scientific Infromation Department

At the final meeting in the JINR Directorate, representatives of the Republic of Korea were welcomed by JINR Vice-Directors M.G. Itkis and R. Lednický, key JINR leaders engaged in the organization of scientific cooperation. The Korean party noted that the most interesting field for the Republic of Korea is the expertise of JINR in carrying out physical experiments and organization of international user programme. The guests also expressed their interest in establishing cooperation with the Joint Institute in the sphere of training young Korean scientists on the JINR basis.

The JINR leaders noted a high level of cooperation with Korean scientists in the wide range of scientific research fields that is seen in the considerable number of joint publications and active exchange of scientific visits. At the end of the meeting, the Korean party received a document that sums up the milestones of the visit and offers of JINR for further development of cooperation.

After the meeting in the JINR Directorate, Prof. Seung Woo Hong gave a short comment for the Institute’s media: “We are engaged in the construction of the RAON accelerator – a mega-science facility in the Republic of Korea – and we plan to finish the construction in three years. We aim to establish an international scientific collaboration and to attract scientists from various countries to work at the facility. That is why we wanted, firstly, to advertise the RAON project and attract scientists from JINR to it. I also see prospects for cooperation in the fields of academic exchange of high-graduate students and young scientists. Today, we visited several basic facilities of JINR, and I was impressed by the dramatic changes that had taken place since my last visit to the Joint Institute several years ago. It impresses that several mega-science projects are being implemented here simultaneously. The amount of financing that the Joint Institute attracts is a high rate. You have the operating international user programme, the technological expertise, an enormous experience in the fields of accelerators and detectors, especially in the fields of superheavy elements. JINR is at the world leading position in several fields. It opens big opportunities for us. That is why we will look for ways of making our contribution and working with you in these fields.”