News in Press-centre

A delegation of the Far Eastern Federal University led by President Boris Korobets took part in the III Young Scientists Congress at the Kurchatov Institute National Research Centre. At the plenary session dedicated to building megascience class infrastructure in Russia, the university representatives discussed the opportunities offered to educators and researchers by the Russian Photon Source synchrotron that will be constructed on Russky Island. The project, being among Vladimir Putin’s presidential instructions given following the Eastern Economic Forum 2023, has been attracting attention of both domestic scientists and leading researchers from Asia-Pacific partner countries.

According to Mikhail Kovalchuk, the session moderator and the Kurchatov Institute’s president, the construction of the Russian Photon Source, also known as RIF, is a key R&D project for the entire Far East and it must become a catalyst for the macroregion’s scientific advancement and a hotspot for young pro-active researchers.

“This new megascience facility is bound to transform the standing of both the university and the Far Eastern Federal District on the whole, making them more competitive and far more appealing to the neighboring states in terms of expertise and scientific research”, – said Kovalchuk.

FEFU President Boris Korobets in his speech hailed the RIF project as a mean that will enable ground-breaking research in absolutely different spheres: physics, biology, medicine, advanced materials and cultural heritage studies.

“Without our own megascience facility, all this would remain just a dream for our researchers. Now they have to go to Dubna, Moscow, Novosibirsk or Gatchina to have a chance to work with such equipment, and only there can they conduct their cost- and time-intensive research. Thanks to Russian Photon Source, we will be able to take a fundamentally new place in the global scientific agenda. And we already notice how our partners from the Asia-Pacific region are starting to look at us. Although the project is still at the design stage, we have received three applications this year from distinguished Chinese researchers asking to work at the synchrotron. This shows that our colleagues realize that RIF is the next big thing and that it is the future of not only the Far East, but the whole Asia-Pacific region”, – he said.

Russian Photon Source is a unique world-class scientific project cooperatively implemented by FEFU and the Kurchatov Institute. Its implementation started on the FEFU campus in June 2022. The Russian government allocated 12.4 billion rubles for the project. In line with the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s instruction, the first RIF research stations are to be launched by 2027. The facility will enable scientists to enhance the knowledge in physics, biology, medicine, advanced materials and cultural heritage studies. FEFU and the Kurchatov Institute are currently introducing a joint staff training program for the RIF synchrotron. Top universities of the Russian Far East, including FEFU and the North-Eastern Federal University, institutes of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, high-tech enterprises of the region as well as Asia-Pacific partners will become the facility’s principal users.