On 29 December, youth of the Joint Institute discussed the results of the outgoing year and plans for the future at a reporting seminar of the Association of Young Scientists and Specialists of JINR.

Addressing the Institute’s youth, JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov noted that now AYSS is conducting its activities even way more actively and enthusiastically. He congratulated young JINR employees on the new year and wished new successes to AYSS.

In 2022, a junior researcher of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems Vladislav Rozhkov was elected Chairman of AYSS. He told the audience about the results of 2022. “We began to move away from the covid times and began to hold more live meetings, recall old formats and events. There are more active participants now. In particular, due to the fact that we began to fight against the information hunger through the social network and newsletter. We managed to try out new formats – the Cinema Club, seminars at the Scientists’ Club … it became clear what else needs to be worked on, what is interesting, and what is not. Next year we plan to try to implement a couple of new formats and remember such forgotten ones as the Science Slam,” Vladislav Rozhkov said.

Now the association has more than 1,000 young active employees up to 36 years old. In the outgoing year, AYSS held not only its traditional events, such as the Lipnya School, the AYSS and Alushta conferences, and others, but also organized a number of new regular meetings. Thus, JINR employees now have the opportunity to meet weekly at the Scientists’ Club at AYSS seminars, where scientific and administrative staff members talk about their work.

The Association continues to actively popularise science. In 2022, representatives of the Association participated in numerous Russian and international festivals, gave lectures, conducted excursions around JINR. AYSS cooperates with youth councils of other organizations. The so-called Subatomic Saturdays have been organized jointly with the Council of SINP MSU, within the framework of which AYSS members conduct excursions and give popular lectures for SINP MSU students. This will help to attract talented students to the Division of Nuclear Physics of the Faculty of Physics and the JINR-based departments.

This year, the German Club has been launched, the English Club has continued its work. The Russian Language Club for employees who are not native speakers is planned to be organized next year.

The Association of Young Scientists and Specialists has long paid attention to the problem of moving between laboratories and inside the sites. This year, the Laboratory of Neutron Physics has purchased public bicycles with the support of AYSS. It is planned that in 2023 other laboratories will join such an initiative, the first of which will be LRB. In addition to the purchase of bicycles, JINR youth offers to organize bicycle stations for their repair together with the Property Complex Development Department. At the initiative of AYSS, a pedestrian road will be created at the site of DLNP.

At the meeting, the employees from AYSS who had defended their PhD theses this year received congratulations. The winners of the Youth JINR Prize and AYSS grantees were announced.