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Accompanied by the Institute’s Director Grigory Trubnikov, the President toured the NICA collider ring, got acquainted with the technological features of the collider ring assembly, and viewed an experimental MPD (Multi Purpose Detector). Chief Engineer of the injection complex at the Laboratory of High Energy Physics Artyom Galimov, and Acting Director of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics Andrey Butenko gave explanations to the Head of State.

The President launched the work on the technological start-up of the mega science-class facility – the NICA superconducting heavy ion collider complex.

The decision to build NICA was made in 2011 at a meeting of the Government Commission on High Technologies and Innovations, and construction started in 2016. NICA is based on the unique domestic technology of superconducting magnets with direct-flow cooling with boiling helium, developed at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and recognised worldwide.

NICA's capabilities will make it possible to launch at the Institute a broad program of applied research for the development of materials science and radiobiology, development of radiation-resistant microelectronics and protection systems for manned astronautics. The complex, which is already being called a ”time machine,“ will help answer one of the fundamental questions: how nuclear matter, which makes up all objects in the visible Universe, emerged after the Big Bang.