On 1 December, the second Congress of Young Scientists started at the Sirius Art and Science Park in Sochi. A JINR delegation is taking part in it. Young employees of JINR are involved in discussions on the most currently important topics. They are presenting the NICA Megascience Project, sharing JINR’s international experience with Congress participants.

On the first day of the event, a discussion “Prospects and challenges of international integration of infrastructure and human resources” took place, at which JINR Director Advisor for International Cooperation Irek Suleymanov and a senior researcher of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics JINR Trambak Bhattacharyya were among other speakers.

Moderator of the meeting, Director of the non-profit organization the International Centre for Innovations in Science, Technology and Education (ICISTE) Irina Kuklina presented the Joint Institute as one of the most successful examples of integration of infrastructure and human resources. “There are not many organizations in the world that could boast of such a long period of operation, constant development of infrastructure and continuous collaboration of scientists in different political and temporal contexts,” she said.

“Since the very moment of its foundation, the Institute has been a platform for uniting international scientific efforts. It became possible thanks to common values of people working at JINR. Science is the most important one. It is capable of destroying many obstacles at any time,” Irek Suleymanov highlighted in his speech. JINR regularly confirms this with its initiatives. For example, last year the Sofia Declaration on the Value of International Integration in Science and Technology was adopted. This year, the Dubna Green Chamber Talks scientific diplomacy club has been launched.

Trambak Bhattacharyya (India), who has already participated in joint projects with JINR for four years, continued the discussion. “For any field of research, cooperation between scientists and integration of infrastructure, human resources, and even ideas are crucial. I am happy to be part of such a large international intergovernmental center, at which I have gained experience of such interaction on a new scale,” he stressed. In particular, Trambak Bhattacharyya mentioned the INTEREST programme by the JINR University Center as a good example of such integration. The importance of working with scientific youth in order to develop scientific dialogue was one of the key topics of the discussion.

Participants of the meeting discussed basic infrastructural facilities, including the NICA Accelerator Complex Project. They stated mutual opinion that this project was a model of integration that can bring scientists to new horizons of scientific research and cooperation.

Another topic of the meeting was the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and the importance of involving young scientists in them. Speakers repeatedly stressed the need to create special youth programmes, making balanced decisions in the field of science, and the role of personal contacts between researchers from different countries.

“Over the past centuries, various perturbations have happened in the world. Thanks to them, the scientific community has developed numerous tools to overcome them such as international dialogues and congresses. As for personal contacts between scientists, they always play an important role. And in the current realities, such ways of overcoming turbulence seem especially relevant,” Irina Kuklina noted at the end of the discussion.

MGIMO Vice-Rector for Science and Research Andrey Baykov, Scientific Leader of the programme “Scientific Diplomacy” of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Paul Berkman were the speakers of the international discussion. They also presented the Center for Scientific Diplomacy at MGIMO as an example of uniting international efforts for the benefit of a common goal. Head of the Department of the Kazan Federal University (KFU) Mikhail Varfolomeev, Acting Rector of the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia Ilya Vorotyntsev, Head of the scientific group “Quantum Information Technologies” of the Russian Quantum Center and Head of the scientific group of the laboratory of the National University of Science and Technology MISIS Aleksey Fedorov, a postdoctoral researcher at KFU, a researcher at the Mexican Petroleum Institute Jose Guillermo Felix Lugo spoke at the discussion.

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Photo: RIA Novosti

Young employees of FLNP, LRB, DLNP, BLTP, and MLIT arrived in Sochi to participate in the Congress on behalf of JINR. On 2 December, Acting Director of the JINR University Center Alexander Verkheev will take part in the discussion “Development of popular science tourism: first results and prospets”. During all the event days, the Institute’s stand is working at the exhibition of the Scientific Tourism Initiative, at which JINR employees are telling guests about the NICA Project.

The Congress of Young Scientists in Sochi is a key event in 2022 within the framework of the Decade of Science and Technology in Russia. Specialists from about 40 countries will visit the Congress, including students and young scientists from Russia, the Republic of Belarus, Kazakhstan, China, India, Egypt, Syria, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, and other countries. A rich and varied programme has been prepared for the Congress participants including round tables, expert sessions, panel discussions, new informal and original formats of events.