The RSA-JINR Summer School, hosted by iThemba LABS, is held online and kicked off on Monday, 24 January 2022. It will run over a two-week period, until 4 February.

The school offers an opportunity to students, enrolled for postgraduate studies in STEMI-disciplines at SA Institutions of Higher Education, to be exposed to the research activities within the field of accelerator-based sciences. The lecturers are leaders in their respective fields and are affiliated with South African universities and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

Students at the School are exposed to lectures on a variety of topics and to hands-on activities (experiments, data analysis, coding). The School topics include, amongst others, accelerator technology, research with accelerators, theoretical and computational physics.

Dr Rudolph Nchodu (Deputy Director, iThemba LABS) and Dr Dmitry Kamanin (Head of the International Cooperation Department of JINR) delivered introductory lectures at the School.

Dr Nchodu said that the School’s aim is to introduce participants to the topics of research conducted jointly by RSA and JINR scientists. The School also highlights many joint projects that RSA researchers have with their JINR counterparts.

Dr Kamanin noted, “RSA-JINR is a unique scientific cooperation because it gives students an opportunity to get involved in scientific activities from the early stages of their research careers”.

He also said that “JINR is looking forward to welcoming students from the Republic of South Africa to join the RSA-JINR student practice and research collaborations within the SA-JINR program and they believe that it may happen already this year.”

This is the third RSA-JINR Physics Summer School organized by the SAINTS Office at iThemba LABS. However, this is the 1st time the School is presented as a fully virtual event. This year, there are 30 participants from across the country representing various Universities.