Kurchatov Institute: a national network of megascience facilities in Russia will become the most powerful in the world

SOCHI, September 28th, 2018. /TASS/. Russia has started to create a national network of megascience facilities that will become the most powerful research infrastructure in the world, Mikhail Kovalchuk, President of NRC "Kurchatov Institute", said on Friday at the Global Forum of Convergent and Nature-Like Technologies.

Megascience facilities are international research complexes. NRC "Kurchatov Institute" on behalf of the Russian government provides scientific leadership in a number of such projects. For example, this is the International thermonuclear experimental reactor ITER, the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility (XFEL), the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN

"We have invested about € 2 billion in international projects. This is a Russian contribution, we are an integral part of the European megastructure. And today, acording to the instructions of the President (according to the May decree of the President - TASS note), we have returned to our country, to create a national network of unique facilities. These include the PIK reactor, the NICA accelerator in Dubna, and synchrotrons (two new synchrotrons are planned to be built on Russky Island and in Novosibirsk - TASS note). And if all this happens, we will have the best and most powerful research infrastructure in the world." — said Professor Kovalchuk.

He stressed that Russia was one of the pioneers of scientific megascience facilities and, with her participation, a similar infrastructure began to develop in Europe.

"Our tokamak is the basis of ITER (project for the creation of a fusion reactor in the south of France - TASS note). Another example is the collider (Large Hadron Collider - TASS note) - it is based on the principle of colliding beams, which was proposed in Novosibirsk "— said Professor Kovalchuk.

About forum

The Global Forum of Convergent and Nature-Like Technologies is taking place September 28-29 in Sochi. It is being held jointly with the Russian Government in a project developed by the Kurchatov Institute and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The term "convergent technologies" appeared in the early 2000s. It involves the integration of nano-, bio-, information and cognitive technologies in the process of creating new results that are not achievable when using each direction separately. It is about interpenetration and merging at the first stage of four global scientific and technological areas, which interaction may lead to the emergence of high-tech projects of a breakthrough nature.

Source (in Russian): https://tass.ru/