On Monday, 9 September 2019, the third stage of the International Student Practice was launched in the JINR University Centre. Senior students and first-years post-graduates of universities of Europe, Africa, and Latin America participate in the event. 22 students came to Dubna: almost a half of whom – 10 students – are from Belarus, a large team of 5 students represents Cuba, four students are from Serbia, two participants represent Chile, and one student is from the RSA.

UC Director S. Z. Pakuliak told us about the peculiarities of the summer practice of this year: “The third stage of our International Student Practice was launched today. Students of a non-JINR Member State take part in the Practice for the first time. The Practice is aimed at the JINR Member States that finance participation of their students using relevant programmes of cooperation with the Joint Institute. Two students from Chile came here for the first time. They will take part in the educational programme together with other participants. The programme traditionally starts with overview lectures and visits to the laboratories. Then, students will work on research projects in the laboratories. Three weeks later, on the final day of the Practice, they will report on the results of their work.”

“Has been the fourth stage of the Practice established this year?”

“Students from the Arab Republic of Egypt usually come to Dubna in September. However, this year they asked us to reschedule their Practice for the end of the year due to organizational issues. That is why we will hold the fourth stage of the Practice this year. It turned out that our Practice changed from the summer practice, as it was originally designed in 2004 when 20 students from the Czech Republic and Poland came to JINR, and was prolonged for the whole second half of the year. So, the number of countries and the number of participants are increasing, and this causes particular challenges we are trying to overcome fast.

I hope we will cope with all these problems, and our Practice will implement its key task, i.e. acquaint students with opportunities of the Joint Institute. It is obvious that no serious scientific task can be solved in three weeks. However, these three weeks allow young people to learn about fields of JINR activities and decide whether they want to link their scientific career with JINR or not. It is a crucial task, and we carry on solving it in the frames of the programme.”

Photo © Igor Lapenko

“How do the laboratories participate? Do they expand the list of educational projects?”

“We work on it. It is not always simple to convince the laboratories’ staff to spend three weeks working with young people without their full commitment. It is clear that the possibility that a young person will come into science, in the laboratory is slight. Education is, in fact, work with a remote result. One can never know in advance what it will result in. However, if we do not work on it, then there will be less and less young people choosing the career of a scientist. Thus, not only the existence of our particular Institute will be threatened but also the existence of science.”

Olga Tarantina, JINR Weekly Newspaper