Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (KNC RAS)

The Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (KNC RAS) is a comprehensive scientific institution that carries out fundamental studies of the features of the natural environment of the high-latitude region of the globe in the Euro-Arctic region and provides a scientific basis for assessing the resource potential and developing a rational strategy for the development of the North.



The center originates from the Khibiny Mining Station of the USSR Academy of Sciences, established in 1930. As the range of tasks expanded and the analytical and experimental potential developed, the Station was successively transformed into the Kola Base of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1934) - the Kola branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1949) - the Kola Scientific Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1988). In 1992, when the Russian Academy of Sciences was formed, the Kola Scientific Center became part of it as regional scientific center.



Currently, the KNC RAS unites 10 research institutes and an extensive complex of auxiliary units and experimental polygons serving them, distributed over a vast territory from Svalbard and Franz Josef Land in the north to Amderma in the east and Tedino and Plesetsk in the south. The basic Academic Campus and the Presidium of the KNC RAS have been located in Apatity, Murmansk Region, since 1961. By 1991, the total number of employees at the KNC of the Russian Academy of Sciences exceeded 3,600 people, but in 1992-98 it halved and by the 70th anniversary it stabilized at the level of 1,900 people. The research staff of the Center is represented by 654 researchers, including 4 academicians, 80 professors and doctors of sciences, more than 300 candidates of sciences.