A regular meeting of the JINR Directorate took place on 9 July in the International Conference Hall with videoconferencing. JINR Director V. A. Matveev in his welcoming speech noted that there was an almost two-month break in meetings because of the fight with the coronavirus. It was quite a long period: “We have already held winter meetings of the JINR Programme Advisory Committees and the session of the Scientific Council in the first half of the year in the real-time mode. It was the first time when the session of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries was held in the video conference format, and the summer meetings of the Programme Advisory Committees were successfully held online. I express gratitude to all colleagues who have managed to organize these events and demonstrated that we can work in such a format.”

The Director mentioned the following issues among the significant results of the first half of the year: the successful transition to a new system of dissertations defence, progress in repairs of the dormitory at 2 Moscovskaya St, plans for extension of the JINR housing stock, improvement of the procedure of admission of specialists from the Member States, work on the strategy of the JINR development until 2030. Preparation to the meeting of the Supervisory Board of the NICA Complex project, and to the session of the Committee of Plenipotentiary Representatives scheduled for November in Bulgaria were noted among the short-term plans. Having briefly summarized major milestones of the CP session at which a full budget for 2020 was approved, the JINR Director focused on the problems: “Issues of personnel management is among our most important concerns: the pandemic has become a formidable challenge for us which raises the issue of creating comfortable conditions for creative work of our scientists, specialists, engineers, employees. It is very important, and we promised to the CP Members to pay the most serious attention to these issues. It is not a coincidence that we have included a survey among employees of the JINR Member States in the agenda of today’s meeting. Such surveys have been conducted by the Association of Young Scientists and Specialists of JINR and the Council of Heads of national groups. These are significant results as far as they provide feedback from the staff to leaders of the Institute thus giving an understanding whether our actions aimed at the creation of comfortable working conditions are sufficient and necessary or not.

First JINR Vice-Director G. V. Trubnikov continued the meeting. JINR Vice-Director R. Lednický reported on the first issue in the agenda of the meeting, namely the analysis of the results of the survey among the staff members from the JINR Member States. His remote co-reporters were Assistant to Head of the JINR Science Organization & International Cooperation Office Wladislaw Chmielowski and Head of the International Cooperation Department D. V. Kamanin.

R. Lednický: “I would say that the main merit in conducting such a survey belongs to heads of the national groups who took on the task of interviewing their compatriots and employees working at JINR. Wladislaw Chmielowski has done extensive work: he made a list of participants of the survey, presented questions that were answered. There were many of them, and it is impossible to consider all the answers…” That is why the speaker offered Wladislaw to present his report and then listen to representatives of the JINR offices able to resolve main problems raised in the survey.

Comments on the results of the survey were made at the meeting by JINR Assistant Director for Human Resources A. V. Ruzaev , Deputy Head of the International Cooperation Department A. A. Kotova, BLTP Director D. I. Kazakov, VBLHEP Director V. D. Kekelidze, Social Infrastructure Management Office Director A. V. Tamonov, Deputy Head of the Finance & Economy Office M. P. Vasiliev, representatives of the Hotel & Restaurant Complex Management Office, the Administration Services Office, the Transport Department, and the Security Office.

First JINR Vice-Director G. V. Trubnikov continued the meeting presenting to participants the results of the BMBF-JINR Coordination Committee. On the eve of the meeting, he made a presentation at the meeting of the Russian-German joint commission on scientific and technical cooperation. In particular, he noted in the presentation that one of the topical issues in the bilateral agenda for JINR and BMBF is the discussion of prospects for enhancing the status of the current bilateral JINR-BMBF agreement up to the Agreement on associate membership of Germany in JINR. At the same time, Grigory Trubnikov proposed to consider further upgrade of German status to the full JINR Member State status. This would allow Germany to fulfill the highest potential of the cooperation to the full extent. In the nearest future, providing Germany with the status of an Associate Member of the Supervisory Board of the NICA Complex project would facilitate strengthening and harmonization of contacts between FAIR and NICA projects. V. N. Shvetsov, B. Yu. Sharkov, R. V. Jolos commented on the issue.

JINR Vice-Director S. N. Dmitriev told participants about preparation of events dedicated to the 65th anniversary of JINR and the first meeting of the working group on preparation to the jubilee. V. A. Matveev in his comment noted: “I think that we should pay special attention to the Member States and those exciting people who have left a bright mark on the history of the Institute. It may become the basis of a book dedicated to the anniversary. And of course, it is necessary to make our Institute remarkable in the city from all the angles.” A little later, B. Yu. Sharkov will say: “The first thing welcoming visitors in Dubna is the locomotive at the station square in Bolshaya Volga district. But in fact, there should be a model of an accelerator…” Yu. Ts. Oganessian asked an unexpected question in his speech: “New superheavy elements: are they a matter or not? Do they obey to the laws of nature? The latest experiments concluding for now the history of synthesis of superheavy elements have demonstrated that the answer is both, yes and now. And the Factory is a tool aimed to shed light on this issue. In fact, a fundamental law of nature is tested at an artificially created object. Elements that cannot be created by nature: are they nature’s “children”? I believe that it is very important that it reaches the minds of a wide range of people…” Yuri Tsolakovich told participants the history of the Governor’s grant allocated by A. Yu. Vorobyev for the synthesis of new elements. Of course, the Laboratory had an efficient budget for this activity, but the grant allocated by the regional government demonstrated its full support and importance of this scientific project. This deeply impressed American colleagues of Dubna scientists and strengthened even better already existing cooperation. G. V. Trubnikov, B. Yu. Sharkov, V. V. Korenkov shared their views on the preparation to the anniversary.

Congratulations from Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation V. N. Falkov and the JINR Directorate were cited at the meeting to the team of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions headed by Yu. Ts. Oganessian for the idea, development and successful implementation of the project of the accelerator complex “Superheavy Element Factory”. The Directorate promoted the team consisting of key employees who made a considerable contribution to the idea, development and successful implementation of the project of the accelerator complex “Superheavy Element Factory”, as well as staff members who greatly contributed to its development and successful implementation.

These are leaders of the project: Yu. Ts. Oganessian, FLNR Scientific Leader and Scientific Leader of the project, V. A. Matveev, JINR Director, Chairman of the Coordinating Committee for the creation of the Superheavy Element Factory, S. N. Dmitriev, FLNR Director (at the time of nomination), Leader of the Project, Chairman of the Coordination Council for the creation of the Superheavy Element Factory, G. G. Gulbekian, FLNR Chief Engineer, Technical Leader of the project; as well as leading developers of the project: B. N. Gikal, Technical Leader of the DC-280 cyclotron creation, N. V. Osipov, Head of the Group for development of design documentation for the DC-280 systems, I. V. Kalagin, Head of the Group for assembling and launch of the DC-280 cyclotron, S. L. Bogomolov, Head of the Group for the creation and launch of the ECR source of the DC-280 accelerator complex, S. V. Pashchenko, Head of the Group for the creation and launch of the control system of the DC-280 cyclotron complex.

JINR Chief Scientific Secretary A. S. Sorin, Vice-Directors R. Lednický, S. N. Dmitriev, B. Yu. Sharkov introduced to participants of the meeting the results of the session of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiary Representatives and the summer meetings of the Programme Advisory Committees for nuclear physics, particle physics and condensed matter physics.

JINR Director V. A. Matveev made a closing speech.

Eugeny Molchanov, JINR Weekly Newspaper