The Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in 1970 in accordance with the Government Decree which was initiated by the Nuclear Physics Department for further development of the experimental base and fundamental research activities in the field of atomic nucleus, elementary particle and cosmic ray physics and neutrino astrophysics.

Nowadays the Institute continues developing the scientific complex of the Moscow Meson Factory. Due to its high-current beam it can provide investigations with a precision which was not attainable before and makes it possible to observe rear events.

In 1998 a pulsed neutron source was successfully launched at the proton beam of the high intensity linear accelerator of the Moscow Meson Factory. In 2000 a unique 100-ton supersensitive lead slowing down neutron telescope was put into operation. The creation of a neutron research center in INR opens up wide prospects for fundamental and applied researches in the field of nuclear physics, radiation material science, condensed matter physics, problems of ecologically pure nuclear power engineering, biology and medicine.

In INR RAS in the city of Troitsk a unique experiment on search for antineutrino mass is carried out by measuring the hard edge of the energy spectrum of electrons from the tritium decay. For this purpose a special "Troitsk-nu-mass setup" was constructed and the best limit on the possible antineutrino mass was established. To obtain higher accuracy modernization of this setup is now in full swing.

The Institute is a pioneer in development of researches in the field of underground and deep underwater particle physics. In the Northern Caucasus we have the Baksan Neutrino Observatory comprising a set of large-scale underground neutrino telescopes and large-area ground installations for studies in the field of neutrino astrophysics, solar neutrino and cosmic ray physics. The Baksan Neutrino Observatory consists of the Baksan Underground Scintillation Telescope, Gallium-Germanium Neutrino Detector, low background laboratories, the KOVYOR (Carpet) Air Shower Array and mountain setup ANDYRCHI. By now the Baksan Neutrino Observatory Complex has yielded many important results in investigation of atmospheric neutrino fluxes, wide atmospheric showers of particles and cosmic rays muons, rare decays of atomic nuclei and a search for dark matter and magnetic monopoles.

The analysis of the measurements of solar neutrino flux taken on the Underground Gallium-Germanium Neutrino Telescope of INR RAS for the period of 10 years has provided basic evidence in support of "solar neutrino oscillations" and thermonuclear nature of the Sun radiation.

The Institute was the first in the world to construct a stationary deep underwater neutrino telescope (HT-200 at the Baikal lake) to detect high energy neutrinos passing through the Earth. By now it remains the only one in the world deep underwater Cherenkov elementary particle detector in action. It is also one of the four largest detectors of high energy neutrinos as far as its effective area and effective volume are concerned. Based on the data analysis obtained at the HT-200 detector we got new and the strongest for today restrictions on the value of a natural flux of rapid magnetic monopoles, on muon fluxes which accompany the process of annihilation of dark matter massive particles (neutralinos) in the center of the Earth, on intensity of a natural flux of high energy electron neutrinos. Furthermore, the detector has become a powerful tool for monitoring the ecological system of the Baikal lake.

The Theoretical Physics Department performs researches in the field of high energy physics, perturbation theory in the quantum theory of the field, the ground state (vacuum) in gauge theories. Here we develop new methods for investigations of dynamics of hadrons strong interactions beyond the perturbation theory, investigate the processes which cannot be explained in the framework of the elementary particles standard model, elaborate theories of the origin of baryon asymmetry of the Universe and study interactions of particle physics and cosmology.

Along with many fundamental problems of the modern physics the Institute elaborates some unique applied projects. On the basis of the Baksan Gallium-Germanium Neutrino Telescope we developed a new technology for extraction and counting of single atoms of radioactive isotopes formed during the capture of neutrino by gallium atoms. In the process of development of the setup for measurement of antineutrino rest mass produced in the tritium beta-decay we created methods for deep purification of gases. On the intermediate (160 MeV) output of the beam of the Moscow meson factory linac we built a special complex on production of radioisotopes for medicine. On the basis of the INR proton linac in Troitsk a ray therapy complex is now under construction.

The Institute collaborates with the leading scientific centers both in Russia and abroad: Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna), Institute of High Energy Physics, Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, P. N. Lebedev Institute of Physics, I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, Institute for Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Division of RAS, Nuclear Physics Institute of the Moscow State University, St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, CERN (Switzerland), DESY(Germany), INFN(Italy), Saclay (France), LANL, BNL, Fermilab (USA), TRIUMF (Canada), KEK (Japan) and many others.

• Institute for Nuclear Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences