On 16-19 May 2017 the 10th Anniversary International School for Nuclear Physics “JINR Days in Bulgaria” was held in the “Borovets” mountain complex, in the “Samokov” hotel.

The Nuclear Regulatory Agency in collaboration with Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and with participation of JINR, has been organizing this International School for Nuclear Physics for ten years. It has been very popular among Bulgarian students and students from neighboring countries. In the past few years, secondary school teachers have also participated in the school. Every year, school’s lectures are given by scientists from JINR laboratories: they present to Bulgarian students, doctoral students and teachers current problems of nuclear physics and its applications, as well as scientific projects undertaken at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

This year, about 30 students from the University of Plovdiv, from Technical University of Sofia, from Southwestern University, as well as two students from Greece from the University of Aristotle in Thessaloniki, attended the school.

The lectures were given by A. Olshevsky (DLNP), A. Andreev (BLTP), V. Kolesnikov and A. Sidorin (VBLHEP), N. Balashov and I. Pelevanyuk (LIT), E. Nasonova (LRB), E. Lychagin (FLNP), V. Skuratov (FLNR). Delegation from the Institute also included Yuri Panebrattsev and his team: Ksenia Klygina and Pavel Semchukov. Certificates were presented by Alexei Alexiev, Deputy Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency of Bulgaria.

It should be noted that young scientists from JINR were among lecturers at the school. Igor Pelevanyuk, a software engineer from LIT, who gave a lecture on “Computing for high-energy physics: past and present”, shared his impressions.

– Igor, you were a student yourself, not so long ago , and perhaps attended similar schools. Does the lecturer’s age influence perception of the material, how does the audience receive presented information? Would you have wished to be older, to look more persuasive?

– I do not think that age plays a big role for students. Of course, some authority comes with age, but what matters is how you look, what you say, and what tone you use for your presentation. And if listeners are interested in what the lecturer is saying, then age is no longer that important to them.

– The school lasted for several days. Does in your opinion the array of speakers and content of lectures give an idea about ​​what is now happening in nuclear physics and, in particular, at JINR?

– In order to give a full picture of all work that is being done at the Institute, perhaps a longer school may be needed than the one we participated in. But school participants now definitely have a general idea about it. They also got acquianted with researchers who work on specific projects, and everyone had a chance to ask questions or chat about their topic of interest. Regarding what interested students most, I think everyone will agree that the topic which generated most interest was a lecture about educational virtual laboratories, presented by Yuri Panebrattsev and his team.

– What was the most valuable result of this school for you personally?

– For me it was a chance to look at my work from the students’ point of view, to tell them why it is important and interesting. It was also interesting to communicate with Bulgarian colleagues, with whom it was so easy to find a common language.