The cornerstone of this program was set during the NICA Days 2015 conference. During this event, the Director of the JINR Academician V.A. Matveev and Vice-Rector for Research (2006-2020) of the WUT professor Rajmund Bacewicz signed the agreement on cooperation between JINR and our university. Two years later, in 2017, the amendment to this agreement had been signed. This amendment was concerning the internship program TeFeNICA. From that moment, more than 100 students have taken part in the internship. One of the project's founding fathers was the late Marek Peryt, head of the Engineering Support Sector and the person who helped the students in every possible way to come to Dubna. The renown of the program and the amount of unique and challenging projects encouraged students from WUT to participate even in the remote form of the internship in the year 2020.

Starting from the 2020 edition of the internship, the topics became more sophisticated, resulting in a more strict selection of students. As a result, this year, there were interviews with the students who registered for the internship for the first time. During the interviews, the acting head of the Engineering Support for the MPD Installation Sector Krystian Rosłon deliberately verified the candidate's knowledge about JINR, general technical knowledge, self-presentation abilities, and English language level. In the end, out of the 30 people that registered the 16 were accepted, most of them — WUT students.

Students chose five topics that they were interested in based on their descriptions. Later on, after the thorough discussions, the projects were distributed according to the student's skills. By doing so, the supervisors were sure that the students and their tasks were almost a perfect match.

Because of the possibility to match the student's skills and preferences with the topics, the topics were more specialized than in the previous edition. The main themes of this year's internship were cryogenics, cooling systems, rack equipment, and MPD physics. Also, there were projects connected with the general work of the Engineering Support Sector, such as monitoring the flow of the documents, sensors calibration system, universal cable tester, Programmable Logic Controllers learning station, and thermal measurements station. Due to the primarly engineering works, most of the students were from the Faculty of Mechatronics and the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology. However, a variety of other faculties had their representatives too.

Most of the students were placed in the laboratory, fully equipped and prepared for the incoming apprentices. The industry-leading technologies and software were part of their everyday work. The participants were able to familiarize themselves with or develop their skills using the Siemens' Programmable Logic Controllers and TIA Portal, National Instruments MyRIO and LabVIEW, Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, 3D printing and a variety of slicers for the 3D printers, Equipment Database, and MPD Root.

Despite using professional equipment and software, the students were also involved with more common works, which they had no opportunity to do previously, because of the remote education.

All students finished their project with considerably great results. Some of the students completed their tasks earlier which allowed them to improve their project or be involved in other Sector works. Moreover, eight outstanding students were invited to return to Dubna for a more extended period — at least six months under the TeFeNICA internship program. Four of them agreed to this offer almost immediately and started to prepare the paperwork required to do so. They are eager to continue developing their projects or to create a new, more complex one because of the more extended period of their stay. The other four students are strongly considering their return to Dubna during the following holidays. One of the biggest obstacles to overcome in inviting the students is arranging the possibility to continue their education. In this matter, JINR University Center has been a great help. By cooperating with this unit of the Institute, during their stay at JINR, students can continue their education without interruptions.

More information about the NICA 2021 internship can be found here

The organizers plan to start the 6th edition of the internship next summer and hold another NICA days conference. Follow NICA news to learn more.