As of right now, intensive work is being done preparing the documentation for the project NOMATEN. The documents are supposed to be presented to the commission of the second phase of the competition Teaming for Excellence in autumn. Opening the conference, dr. hab. Paweł Sobkowicz, deputy NCBJ Director for Innovation and Implementation, reminded, that at the current stage a business plan for the Centre must be established, and such plan has to assume a close cooperation with the industry and optimal use of research infrastructure and experience of the funding institutions. Moreover, it is equally important to prepare a research programme, as well as envision the future science teams and select their leaders. The co-host of the conference, prof. Jacek Jagielski, Director of NCBJ’s Material Physics Department, emphasized, that the Centre’s Director and the leaders of the science teams should be chosen through  an open international competition. The hosts believe, that the financial and organizational conditions offered by the jobs will attract
specialists with high international position, who are able to build creative teams and put ambitious tasks in front of them.

The conference is attended by a few dozen specialists from the institutions initializing the project as well as from polish and foreign science facilities, which share a common interest with the project and are willing to cooperate with the NOMATEN Centre.

The concept of centres of excellence predict, at its core, construction of strong, well-financed science teams. They are supposed to mainly use already existing research infrastructure of the funding institutions as well as plentiful of open laboratories, which provide access to their devices through a competition of projects and/or through lending. NCBJ will provide access to the Maria research reactor along with the neutronography laboratory (currently under modernization) as well as to the processing power and competence of Świerk Computing Centre, infrastructure of Material Research Laboratory and POLATOM Radioisotope Centre’s experience in implementation and business. In less than three years the scientists will also be able to use equipment in the Centre for Design and Synthesis of Molecularly Targeted Radiopharmaceuticals “CERAD”, equipped, among other things, with modern cyclotron, as well as in the innovation-implementation centre for industrial radiation techniques CentriX, equipped with advanced devices for radiographic research. Moreover, on the roadmap of polish research infrastructure lie other investments in Świerk, which can be useful in research conducted by scientists from NOMATEN.