Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CREMLIN (Connecting Russian and European Measures for Large-scale Research Infrastructures)

Teaser

Large-scale scientific instruments and infrastructures are becoming ever more indispensable tools for scientific discoveries – discoveries that are of utmost relevance for the society of today and tomorrow. Russia is a key partner for the European Union in this...

Summary

Large-scale scientific instruments and infrastructures are becoming ever more indispensable tools for scientific discoveries – discoveries that are of utmost relevance for the society of today and tomorrow. Russia is a key partner for the European Union in this respect.
CREMLIN is a European-Russian project that aims at improving and strengthening the collaboration between Russian and European research infrastructures (RI). CREMLIN is a pathfinding project, aiming at exploring pathways and strategies for an intensified EU-Russian collaboration on RI.
The project focuses on European-Russian collaboration along six Russian scientific infrastructure projects: (i) the reactor complex PIK, (ii) the ion collider facility NICA, (iii) the synchrotron radiation source SSRS-4, (iv) the high-power laser XCELS, (v) the lepton collider SCT. The fusion project (vi) IGNITOR is being addressed in CREMLIN on a less prominent level.
The three key objectives for CREMLIN are:
• Enhance European-Russian science cooperation along the megascience facilities;
• Develop recommendations, strategies and perspectives for an enhanced European-Russian cooperation;
• Establish an exchange platform for mutual learning across the various science disciplines and communities.

Work performed

Significant progress has been made in order to meet the key objectives at three corresponding levels:
Scientific cooperation: Within five thematic work packages, the European-Russian project teams carried out meetings, scientific workshops, training measures and expert reviews in order to define, coordinate and implement first specific science and technology roadmaps for an enhanced cooperation.
Research policy level: specific recommendations for CREMLIN have been worked out by the external advisory board, science policy related working meetings (for instance on ESFRI processes and on internationalization of RI) have been conducted, (iii) obstacles and barriers preventing a smooth EU-Russia collaboration in the five thematic roadmaps have been identified and could be solved by careful diplomatic intervention and consensus-building coordination actions.
Cross-topic level: an exchange platform has been set up that ensures an effective exchange of knowledge and best practice and stimulates mutual learning.

WP1 “Project management”: DESY and NRC KI have set up project boards and have organised board meetings (Consortium Board, Project management board, Science policy advisory board). All three boards are set up with representatives of European and Russian institutions, in a carefully balanced way. A training session on financial regulations under Horizon 2020 has been offered by DESY.
The WP2 “Exchange platform” has been established by DESY and NRC KI. Three events with participants from all 19 consortium partners were organized: (i) the working meeting on “Policy- and ESFRI-related issues” at JINR in Dubna, (ii) the workshop on “Internationalisation aspects of megascience facilities” at ESS ERIC in Lund, and (iii) the workshop on “Big data management” at the NRC KI in Moscow.
Preliminary informal exchanges with the ESFRI chair are taking place in order to explore ways how to link the Russian megascience projects closer to the ESFRI processes.
FAIR and JINR have been carrying out a number of smaller workshops in WP3 “Science cooperation with the NICA collider facility in the field of ion beams and heavy ion physics”. These activities are devoted to the preparation of the construction of a detector system for FAIR and NICA. The teams at FAIR and JINR participated in altogether 14 events with a focus on training as one of the key objectives in these activities.
The European-Russian team in WP4 “Science cooperation with the PIK research reactor in the field of neutron sources” (with Juelich and PNPI as key partners) has been focusing during the first period on training activities, on exploring user demands in both EU and Russian neutron communities, and in the PIK instrumentation programme. Working out recommendations for the PIK instrumentation suite has been started by establishing “PIK expert groups” that came together in two rounds.
WP5 “Science cooperation with the SSRS-4 synchrotron radiation source in the field of photon science”, with the key partners ESRF and NRC KI, needed some time to start their team work, mainly due to the fact that the SSRS-4 project has been in a rather premature phase. DESY has organised a first informal working meeting in order to kick-start the work in WP5. A workshop on “Mapping the demands and needs of the Russian and European photon science communities” was held in Moscow. The WP5 community is now preparing for their joint work on a Conceptual Design Report (CDR) for the SSRS-4.
Within WP6 “Science cooperation with XCELS in the field of high power laser research” – ELI-DC, CEA LIDyL, IAP RAS –, two European-Russian workshops have been organised: one by IAP RAS, entitled “Novel Applications of Exawatt Laser Sources”, the second workshop by CEA, on: “Key HP laser technologies for Ultra High Intensity Physics”. The WP6 partners agreed on a slight reformulation of the WP6 description of work.
Both partners in WP7 “Science cooperation with

Final results

CREMLIN will substantially contribute to enter a new level of European-Russian collaboration on research infrastructures by catalyzing more scientific cooperation and by paving the way to more effective means to organize it. The project is a major initiative among European and Russian actors to build up mutual confidence and to arrive at a common understanding of their research systems, their related policies, processes and practices around RI projects.
With all its workshops, round tables, conferences, and trainings, CREMLIN will lead to a closer, more stable and more reliable collaboration practice between European and Russian research infrastructures and to a better utilization of European and Russian RI. As a pioneering project, CREMLIN has to be seen as first step on a longer path. But this step will form a solid base to organize international access and cooperation around RI, to agree on standards, policies and best practices, to consider scientific complementarities and to include scientific user interests in planning and designing of RIs.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.cremlin.eu/.