After a one-year break, the Public Council under the JINR Directorate has resumed its work with new members. This time, participants of the meeting discussed in detail educational issues. The first achievements of the new Lyceum, the new status of the University “Dubna”, JINR-based departments, as well as the new branch of Lomonosov Moscow State University in Dubna, and much more were discussed at the Public Council on 30 June.

Deputy Scientific Leader of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions JINR Professor Mikhail Itkis headed the new membership of the JINR Public Council and opened the regular meeting. JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov commented on the agenda. “We’ve decided to start with the future. And it is largely determined by the quality of youth education, which is a necessary condition for the implementation of our plans,” he said. “In the future, it is worth discussing the development of the city as a whole and many social issues of concern to JINR employees and all residents of the city.”

Head of Dubna Sergey Kulikov welcomed new members of the Public Council. Scientific Leader of JINR Victor Matveev addressed participants of the meeting via videoconference. He appreciated the role of the public formation in the development of interaction between city government bodies and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research as one of the leading city-forming enterprises.

Director of the Moscow Regional Physics and Mathematics Lyceum named after Academician V. G. Kadyshevsky Yuri Kurlapov spoke about the work of the Lyceum. He touched upon the main results of the first year of the Lyceum, the time of its formation, shared plans for the next academic year and for the future. Participants of the meeting appreciated the work of the teaching staff, numerous successes of lyceum students both in studying and in the Olympiad movement, put forward a number of proposals for further development of cooperation with JINR.

Rector of the State University “Dubna” Dmitry Fursaev told participants of the meeting about the results of the recent Scientific Council of the University. In his report on the results of work in the 2021-2022 academic year, the Rector noted that important organizational and financial problems had to be solved in connection with the transition of the University to the federal level. In the past academic year, a new educational model was proposed and implemented; work began on the modernisation of engineering education, focused on training staff for priority areas of the University development. In addition, the School of Technological Entrepreneurship was created; support for youth priority research began; the programme “Startup as a diploma” was launched, in which seven teams participated; three student projects were supported by the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises “Umnik”. Students graduated from the School of Innovation Pedagogy and the IT School “Data Science“, and the first graduation from the International Engineering School took place. The meeting continued with the summing up of the discussion by the university staff of the project “Development programmes of the State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education of the Moscow region University “Dubna” for 2022 – 2030”. Dmitry Fursaev paid great attention to the development of JINR-based departments and other forms of interaction with JINR.

Alexander Olshevsky, the Head of the Department of the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems JINR, began his report on the establishment of the MSU branch in Dubna with the history of the SINP MSU branch, which had been operating in Dubna since 1960. More than 70 percent of the branch’s graduates work at JINR. Its new history unfolded in 2016 – 2021 at the Departments of Elementary Particle Physics and Physics of Fundamental Nuclear Interactions. On 28 February 2022, according to the decree of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation, a branch of MSU was established in Dubna, and Eduard Boos was appointed its director. Organizational work is currently underway, information about which will soon be available on the branch’s website. The opening of the branch is scheduled for 2023.

The Public Council under the JINR Directorate was organized in 2014 in order to create favourable conditions for the official activities of the Institute, the interaction of its employees and their families with Dubna local authorities. The Council, consisting of 23 employees of the Institute, including veterans and youth, people known for their active lifestyle, was headed at that time by the Head of the FLNP JINR Department, a member of the Dubna City Council and now Head of the Dubna City District Sergey Kulikov. During its work, the Council discussed many issues of JINR’s interaction with the city administration, enterprises, and institutions of Dubna, city social and socio-cultural programmes.