The traditional Joint International Accelerator School "Ion Collider Physics" was held in Dubna. Organizers of the school are Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), as well as accelerator laboratories in the USA and Japan.

The School’s programme covered a wide range of issues related to modern ion colliders and their development trends, such as the scientific challenges facing modern accelerator complexes, beam dynamics, ion sources, accelerators and high-frequency systems, vacuum technologies, and modelling tools.

This year about 70 “schoolers” from Russia, Belgium, Germany, India, Kazakhstan, China, Morocco, Poland, Switzerland, and Japan participated in the event. A record-high number of participants represented MEPhI at the School. Overall, there were 15 young scientists, post-graduates and students of the MEPhI, as well as 20 participants, who graduated from MEPhI in past years (mainly from the Department of Electrophysical Installations) and who currently work at JINR, NRC Kurchatov Institute, RFNC-VNIIEF and other Russian research centres.

Leading experts from JINR, BINP SB RAS, CERN, JAEA, KEK delivered their lectures at the School. Two lectures on linear ion accelerators and high-frequency accelerator systems were delivered by associate professors of the LaPlas Institute of the MEPhI Mikhail Lalayan and Sergey Polozov.

In the framework of the School, there were also organized excursions to the JINR Laboratory of High Energy Physics to familiarize with the NICA project, and practical exercises that dealt with various issues related to the development and design of accelerator complexes and their systems.