From 15 to 17 June, a jubilee 5th International Summer School for Young Scientists “Modern information technologies for solving scientific and applied problems” was held at the North Ossetian State University. This is an annual event held on the platform of the first Information Centre of JINR in the South of Russia with active participation of the Joint Institute. This time there were participants not only from North Caucasus but also from the Far East. Within the participation in the event Head of the JINR delegation, Director of the Institute Grigory Trubnikov met with Head of the Republic of North Ossetia – Alania Sergey Menyaylo, as well as discussed training of staff for scientific and digital economy.

This time, more than 100 students and young scientists from the North Caucasus Federal University, Chechen, Adygea and Kabardino-Balkarian State Universities joined the School. Participants from Vladivostok and Kamchatka also joined the event thus spreading the geography of the event. For four days, students were mastering modern methods of solving applied tasks with the use of parallel programming technologies and tools of data analysis.

The anniversary IT School was held in the year of the 5th jubilee of the first JINR Information Centre in the South of Russia. “NOSU has pioneered the world movement of JINR Infocentres. We are glad that thanks to it talented youth from North Ossetia have an opportunity to study and take part in large-scale international projects, become a part of big science,” Director of the Joint Institute Grigory Trubnikov noted in his comment. “Our main goal is to ensure that in addition to our big science, high-tech companies appear in Vladikavkaz. They will attract talented professors, teachers, and students, as well as those who need technologies. It will allow NOSU to create a special environment here: a technopark or a “boiling point” for those who want to come here and work,” he stressed.

The practical result of the NOSU-JINR cooperation on the Infocentre basis is seven graduation theses by students of the North-Ossetian University on the topics of the Institute’s activities. Works have been done under the co-supervision of JINR scientists and NOSU specialists. Bachelor students of the final year and third-year students presented their works in the fields of theoretical physics, information technologies, as well as reports on their participation in the NICA Project, in particular, in the SPD Experiment.

“Fundamental science may be done in small and big laboratories. Our task here, in Vladikavkaz, is to provide students with an opportunity to be involved in large-scale projects, do big science together with JINR,” Grigory Trubnikov noted. On 17 June, JINR and NOSU signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the admission of K. L. Khetagurov North Ossetian State University to the ARIADNA Collaboration for carrying out the applied research programme at the NICA Accelerator Complex.

Lectures by JINR specialists at the School were dedicated to the JINR digital ecosystem, the development of information technologies for solving scientific tasks, distributed computing for data processing, organization of data bases within large-scale scientific experiments. A separate block of reports was devoted to JINR flagship projects: participants learned how the NICA Accelerator Complex and the Govorun Supercomputer operate. Students were able to solidify their knowledge in practice at the organized workshops of the School. This year, they were devoted to virtual reality, artificial intelligence, computing for projects on theoretical physics, the use of automated systems for applied tasks.

Third-year students of the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Technologies of the Far-Eastern Federal University took part in the Summer School. A JINR Information Centre of the Joint Institute has been working for more than a year at FEFU. A third-year student of IMCT FEFU Semen Dranov commented the School, “We acquired theoretical and practical knowledge to work with data bases for large-scale scientific experiments. We learned about the Jupyter ecosystem for solving applied tasks. One of the lectures was on machine learning and neural networks, and then we ourselves created an artificial intelligence for recognizing the objects in pictures. There were many interesting events, tasks and people we had a chance to talk to.”

A significant event in the programme of the visit to Vladikavkaz was a working meeting of JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov with Head of the Republic of North Ossetia – Alania Sergey Menyaylo. The topic of the discussion was the development of long-term cooperation in the fields of science and personnel training. Rector of the K. L. Khetagurov North-Ossetian State University Alan Ogoev, Minister of Education and Science of North Ossetia Ella Alibekova and Vice-Rector of NOSU Alexander Nartikov took part in the event.

Within the traditional special programme of the School, there was a round table held titled “Staff training for digital economy”. Representatives of JINR and participating universities discussed the issues of network interaction of universities with scientific and technological organizations. In addition to Dubna University and universities of the North Caucasus, they included the heads of JINR Information Centres Alexandra Reguzova (FEFU) and Daniyal Israpilov (KamSU).

“Information technologies are developing rapidly, the requirements of the scientific and technological sector for the skills of employees are constantly changing. By including elective disciplines in the training programmes of students, as well as organizing additional education, we will be able to train specialists with the necessary set of competencies for the employer. The International IT School “Big Data Analytics” can act as a platform for interaction between universities and play an integrating role in the organization of network educational programmes,” Andrey Nechaevsky, Acting Vice—Rector of Dubna University for Digital Development, a MLIT JINR lead programmer, said.