The nuclotron-based ion collider facility (NICA) at JINR: new prospects for heavy ion collisions and spin physics

The status of the new flagship project ` Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility' (NICA) at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, Dubna), the NICA main parameters and physics program are briefly presented. The generation of intense heavy ion and polarized light nuclear NICA beams is aimed at searching for the phase transitions, mixed phase and critical phenomena in nuclear matter and the investigation of polarization phenomena at the collision energies up to root s(NN) = 9 GeV.