Microstrip gas counters (MSGC) are devices capable of locating the passage of ionising particles with high accuracy. This detector has applications in astrophysics, atomic physics, elementary particle physics and medical imaging. The counter is like its predecessor, the multiwire proportional chamber, based on the phenomenon of collection and amplification of electrons liberated in a suitable gas. Nowadays the radiation hardness of the device is the main limitation of the use of MSGC. This depends critically on the surface properties of the substrate on which the counter is built.

The project enables three institutes located in Moscow to work on the improvement of the substrates necessary to construct a radiation-hard MSGC. The contribution of the research teams in Bruxelles and Amsterdam, will consist in making available facilities for assembling and testing the resulting devices.