Status of the NICA project at JINR.

The project NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility) is aimed to study hot and dense baryonic matter in heavy ion collisions in the energy range up to √sNN = 11 GeV, and to study nucleon spin structure in polarized proton and deuteron collisions in the energy range up to √s = 27 GeV. The heavy ion program will be performed at the Nuclotron extracted beams with the BM@N (Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron) set-up and with the MPD (MultiPurpose Detector) at the NICA collider with the average luminosity of L = 1027 cm-2s-1 (for 197Au79+). The spin physics will be studied with the SPD (Spin Physics Detector) at the NICA collider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]