17.04.2008 // Nuclear.Ru

Russian Research Center “Kurchatov Institute” is celebrating its 65th anniversary

The press service of Kurchatov Institute reports that today, Apr 17, the Scientific Council of the Institute is conducting a jubilee conference.

During the hard years of World War II the State Defense Committee of the Soviet Union decided to resume research in the field of nuclear physics with a view to create a uranium bomb.

For that purpose, they established a Laboratory #2 (the future Kurcahtov Institute). Igor Kurchatov was appointed as head of the laboratory.

It was the birthday of Kurchatov Institute, the biggest research institute of Russia, the author of all nuclear projects in the Soviet Union and many of the key peaceful nuclear projects in the world today.

Today, Kurchatov Institute has grandiose plans. In 2006 it outlined its key priorities for the coming years:

• nuclear power engineering and nuclear fuel cycle;
• nano-technologies, diagnosis and materials science;
• ITER and controlled thermonuclear synthesis;
• fundamental research;
• information technologies and systems;
• dual purpose technologies and projects;
• nonproliferation of nuclear materials and protection of nuclear facilities;
• nuclear medicine.

The Nano-Industry Development Strategy, suggested by the President, qualifies Kurchatov Institute as national center of nano-technologies, nano-systems and nano-materials and coordinator of projects in this field. Kurchatov Institute is the head organization of the Program for Coordination of Projects in the Field of Nano-Technologies and Nano-Materials, adopted by the Government in Aug 2006.

Kurchatov Institute has designed Russia’s first specialized source synchrotron radiation, which together with IR-8 reactor, serves as a basis for projects in the field of nano-technologies and radiation materials science as well as for the production of unique equipment for fundamental and applied research.

Kurchatov Institute was at the root of Internet in Russia. It is one of the authors of Russia’s research and education network.

Today, Kurchatov Institute is a multi-profile research center of national scale with developed experimental system: nuclear reactors and stands, systems for thermonuclear synthesis and plasma technologies, clusters for microelectronics, accelerators, sources of synchrotron radiation and neutrons, etc..

The spectrum of the Institute’s projects is very wide: from research in astrophysics, theory of elementary particles and intra-nuclear processes to development of Russia’s nuclear strategy and supervision of nuclear and hydrogen energy projects, from development of information technologies and large-scale tests for control of thermonuclear synthesis to studies in biology and medicine.  

Few centers in the world can match Kurchatov Institute in experimental research capacities. In fact, it is one of the world’s leading research centers.

Centers like Kurchatov Institute are model of research centers of the future: interdisciplinary national laboratories with a new approach to the resolution of scientific and technological tasks in XXI, the locomotives of scientific progress and innovative development.