A Meeting of Senior Officials of the BRICS countries on science and technology cooperation (SOM S & T) chaired by the Director-General of the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of South Africa Ph. Mjwara was held on 7-8 November 2012 in Pretoria (South Africa). Head of the JINR International Cooperation Department D.V.Kamanin represented the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) on the side of the Russian delegation.

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research is a one of active centers of multilateral scientific and technological cooperation in the world, where research projects in the format of BRICS can be implemented. At present, the Russian Federation is a member state of JINR; the Republic of South Africa participates in the organization as an associate member. There are extensive contacts with China and India; in particular, the JINR Scientific Council includes representatives of India and China, scientific relations with Brazil are also being developed. Due to its multidisciplinary nature, directions of JINR activities are sufficiently present in the priority areas of scientific and technological cooperation, which is defined by the governments of the BRICS countries. JINR believes that, following the example of successful development of participation of RSA in JINR, consolidation of development of relations of Brazil, India and China with JINR in the form of associate membership could contribute greatly to implementation of projects in the BRICS format. As the first step, the Russian side proposed to hold a workshop on one of the priority areas on the basis of JINR in the nearest future.