Director of National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute Mikhail Kovalchuk and Director General of the Krylov State Research Centre Anatoliy Aleksashin have signed a general agreement for scientific and technical cooperation for economic, technical and technological improvement of naval and commercial ships and other marine facilities to be designed.

On the one hand, this cooperation is based on multifaceted innovative experience of Kurchatov Institute engaged in R&D projects addressing a broad range of fields in science and technology, including nuclear power engineering, development of nuclear submarines and surface ships.

For its part, the Krylov State Research Centre has a great practical R&D experience in various fields related to shipbuilding, including ship power engineering, nuclear and radiation safety.

Therefore, the heads of both Russian leading research centres believe that the consolidation of their scientific and technical capabilities will bring the groundbreaking results in the following fields:

• research and development of theoretical basis, physical principles and design solutions for innovative highly-efficient, reliable and safe nuclear power plants (NPP) for transport applications,
• research and development of fundamentally new materials and structures of biological protection for transport NPP in order to reduce its weight and dimensions and retain its performance,
• fundamental theoretical research, investigation of physical principles and structural design of promising and safe power plants based on renewable power sources,
• research in hydrogen economy including nuclear-hydrogen energy,

Joint research centers planned to be established for transport NPP R&Ds are considered to be an efficient tool to achieve such innovative results.