On 16 October, the JINR Autumn School of Information Technologies got its start at the JINR Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies. The main goal of the School is to involve young specialists in solving tasks in various fields of science using state-of-the-art information technologies. 52 senior students from 11 Russian universities, including those ones where the Institute’s Information Centers operate, participate in it. At the School, the students will get acquainted with the directions of JINR scientific research. If interested, they will have the opportunity to select topics for their graduation theses and JINR supervisors for writing them. The selected topics will be approved in April, during the JINR Spring School of Information Technologies.

Opening the School, JINR Vice-Director, Corresponding Member of the RAS Vladimir Kekelidze thanked the School’s participants and underlined the importance of holding such events. “We live in the time of the fourth information revolution. At present, information technology is the most rapidly developing area of science. JINR is highly interested in mastering advanced IT technologies and involving young specialists. It is encouraging that so many young people have gathered here to learn,” he emphasized. Vladimir Kekelidze also expressed confidence that the School would be useful to young scientists and would help shape their life path and career.

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Scientific Leader of the Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies Vladimir Korenkov enlarged upon the goals of the School and opportunities that open up for the students, as well as presented the results of the Schools held in the 2022/2023 academic year.

“We are holding the School of Information Technologies for the second time,” he pointed out. “We took the experience of organizing the School last year as a foundation: during five days, the students will listen to lectures and participate in master classes and tutorials that will help them decide on the topic of their graduation thesis, as well as select a JINR supervisor who, together with a university supervisor, will help them prepare it. We invited outstanding lecturers, not only the Institute’s scientists, but also world-class experts from other organizations”.

He highlighted that the range of topics that the students would get acquainted with would be expanded. In particular, this is a highly important and promising direction for the Institute, the JINR Digital EcoSystem.

“Like last year, in the spring, in April, we will hold another school, where we will sum up the results, and those who selected the topic will talk about their findings. This will be extremely useful, since the students will still have time to enhance their work. Such experience will help to complete the training more efficiently,” Vladimir Korenkov concluded.

The work of the first day of the School began with a report by Vladimir Kekelidze. He told the audience about the history of JINR’s foundation, the Institute’s structure, its major achievements of recent years and directions of research. JINR Vice-Director enlarged upon the basic projects, in particular, he introduced the participants to the flagship project, the NICA accelerator complex.

The program of the first day of the School was continued by the talk of Vladimir Korenkov on the IT infrastructure of the Institute and the main projects implemented by MLIT. MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov discussed the most urgent problems in elementary particle physics.

Alexandr Bugay, Director of the Laboratory of Radiation Biology, delivered a report in which he reflected the key role of information technology in the development of life sciences, particularly in the tasks solved at LRB.

Invited lecturer Alexander Degtyarev, Professor of the Department of Computer Modeling and Multiprocessor Systems of St. Petersburg State University, spoke about the process of creating, developing and using a virtual laboratory to provide high-performance computing.

Gennady Ososkov, Professor, MLIT Chief Researcher, a scientist who was at the forefront of the creation and use of machine learning algorithms at JINR, shared his experience in applying various methods to high-energy physics tasks.

Deputy Director of the JINR University Center Alexander Verkheev introduced the students to the Institute’s educational programs.

The second half of the day was devoted to one of the School’s directions, the JINR Digital EcoSystem (DES). Sergey Belov, Head of the DES Development and Maintenance Sector, spoke about the elaboration of a system that integrates various information and functional modules of the Institute’s scientific, organizational, administrative and service activities. Alexey Prikhodko, Head of the DES Maintenance and Administration Group, demonstrated the functional features of the system being developed, and MLIT Senior Researcher Konstantin Lukyanov considered the tasks that need to be solved when creating and developing JINR websites and web services.

The JINR Autumn IT School will continue its work until 20 October. The participants will learn about distributed and high-performance computing for the preparation, implementation and support of experimental and theoretical research conducted within JINR large research infrastructure projects. JINR scientists will deliver talks on modern methods and technologies for processing and analyzing information, as well as on machine learning and artificial intelligence. The students will learn a multitude of interesting things about the support and development of the JINR Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex. Another goal of the School is to introduce the participants to mathematical modeling, numerical methods and algorithms for solving JINR applied tasks. The School’s program will also embrace practical classes and a hackathon on parallel computing.

On the final day there will be held round tables within all scientific directions of the School, where discussions between the students and the teachers on materials from the lectures and the classes, as well as on possible topics of graduation theses within JINR research areas, are expected.

The second stage of the School, namely, the JINR Spring School of Information Technologies, at which the students will present the results of joint work with the Institute’s specialists on the selected thesis topics, is planned for April 2024.