The Institute of Nuclear Physics is taking another step towards integrating into the global scientific community. A delegation from the INP, headed by the Director General Sayabek Sakhiyev, visited the Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL, France), the world's leading center for neutron research. The purpose of the visit was to get acquainted with the ILL infrastructure and discuss the inclusion of advanced scientific instruments in the project of a new research reactor in Kazakhstan.
During negotiations with the ILL Director Ken Andersen and the Institute's permanent researcher V.V. Nesvizhevskiy, the representatives from the Institute of Nuclear Physics (INP) toured the key experimental halls and received a detailed introduction to the work of 43 scientific facilities, 10 of which were developed under the Collaborative Research Group (CRG) model.
As Mr. Andersen noted, the CRG model enables international consortia not only to develop their own instruments based on ILL's neutron beams, but also to secure guaranteed access to at least 50% of beam time—provided the developer offer full technical and financial support for the instruments.
The Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL) is an international research center founded in 1967. It is one of the eight leading scientific institutions in the European Union and hosts around 1,400 researchers annually from over 40 countries. More than 1,000 experiments are conducted at the ILL, selected by an international scientific review committee. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are associate members of the ILL, while 11 additional European countries participate as scientific members, jointly contributing to the funding and development of the institute’s infrastructure.
Sayabek Sakhiyev emphasized that the INP intends to adopt best practices from the CRG model when developing advanced neutron scattering instruments based on the WWR-K reactor. As a result of the visit, both parties agreed to jointly prepare a roadmap outlining the selection of instruments, development of a feasibility study, and the scheduling of adaptation plans for deployment for the new research reactor in Kazakhstan.
