On 30 September, within the 132nd session of the JINR Scientific Council, President of the Mexican Physical Society Dr Ana Maria Cetto met with the Directorate of the Joint Institute to discuss ways to expand contacts between JINR scientists and Mexican scientific and educational organizations.

Welcoming Dr Setto, JINR Vice-Director Vladimir Kekelidze noted that JINR and Mexico had already established a long tradition of cooperation. “Six institutes have become members of the MPD Сollaboration since 2019. Although there are not so many representatives of Mexico at the Institute yet, this is just the beginning. We hope to further increase the number of Mexican physicists and engineers at JINR,” he said.

“Fruitful cooperation is built through personal contacts between scientists, and I think this is what JINR-Mexico cooperation is striving for,” Dr Ana Maria Setto said. Chief Scientific Secretary Sergey Nedelko supported the idea as well, “People make science. Active scientists will become the driving force in the development of our cooperation.” The parties discussed the possibility of awarding scholarships to talented Mexican scientists to conduct scientific research in Dubna.

The parties noted the usefulness of constant coordination of the cooperation development and a joint action plan. In particular, it is planned to hold several webinars dedicated to both the existing cooperation, first of all, the participation of Mexican colleagues in the NICA project and promising areas of mutual interest, one of which is radiobiology. The parties agreed to support the development of contacts at the expert level in this area and a number of others, as well as to coordinate steps to raise awareness among the Mexican scientific community about the Joint Institute in general.

Dr Ana Maria Setto commented on her visit to the Joint Institute and Mexico’s cooperation with JINR, “There is a friendly relationship between the Mexican colleagues who are already working and cooperating with the Institute and their colleagues in Dubna. This is the basis for any good collaboration, and we will build further cooperation on it. Our colleagues show high interest and are very much motivated in what they are doing here in Dubna. They see the benefit of the collaboration and can convey this good impression to our people in Mexico.

During my current visit to Dubna, I took part in the session of the Scientific Council for the first time as a member and was well impressed by the number of participants. What I found important is that most of scientists continue to cooperate, scientific projects develop. This is the benefit of the international institution!”

In February of this year, Dr Ana Maria Setto visited JINR as a special guest at the 131st session of the Scientific Council. This time, she participated in the 132nd session as an elected member of the Council.