On 27 June 2019, the last meeting of the historic Dissertation Council Д720.001.02 was held in the equally historic Conference Hall of the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics where such outstanding scientists as Academician L. D. Landau, A. B. Migdal, Ya. B. Zeldovich and others performed. The Council was established by V. I. Veksler and then was headed by Academician A. M. Baldin for about 30 years. For the last 18 years, the Council was headed by Prof. A. M. Malakhov. The meeting was the last one as far as JINR obtained the right to award scientific degrees. Since 1 September 2019, new dissertation councils will launch their work.

It should be noted that the LHE (then LHEP) Dissertation Council has successfully operated for more than 50 years thanks to excellent work of Scientific Secretaries M. F. Likhachev (participant of the Battle of Stalingrad) and then V. A. Arefiev. More than 450 scientists defended candidate and doctoral theses during the Council’s existence. Now, they hold leading positions in JINR, the JINR Member States, and some other countries as well. Among them there were, for example, MAS Academician B. Chadraa (held the post of President of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences), UAS Academician B. S. Yuldashev (President of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan), some scientists from Bulgaria (V. Cholakov, V. Krastev), and from almost all other JINR Member States and Associate Members (for example, Egypt).

Being VBLHEP Director, Academician A. M. Baldin paid much attention to training scientific staff and a special role of the Dissertation Council in this process. He always personally directed meetings of the Council and actively supported young staff members. Defence of dissertations was always carried out with vivid scientific discussions in which many members of the Council took an active part.

At the last meeting of the Dissertation Council, Head of the group of the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems, Chief Scientific Secretary of the University “Dubna” Igor B. Nemchenok successfully defended dissertation “Development and study of plastic and liquid scintillators for detectors in experiments on neutron physics” to attain the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences. Official opponents of the dissertation were A. F. Buzulutskov (Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Chief Researcher of INP), L. A. Kuzmichev (Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Head of the laboratory in SINP MSU), and V. I. Rykalin (Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Chief Researcher in IHEP). All opponents gave favourable feedbacks and noted a considerable contribution made by the defender of the thesis to conducted research. The dissertation evoked a vivid interest among members of the Council as far as its results are useful for the development of scintillation detectors for modern physical facilities.

At the end of the meeting, Chairman of the Dissertation Council Prof. A. I. Malakhov expressed his gratitude to members of the Council for many years of fruitful work. He especially noted fruitful participation of B. V. Batyunya, V. V. Glagolev, A. D. Kovalenko, V. T. Matyushin, G. L. Melkumov, Yu. A. Panebratsev, Yu. I. Romanov, G. D. Shirkov, V. A. Smirnov, A. V. Stavinsky, E. A. Strokovsky, G. N. Timoshenko, I. A. Tyapkin, V. V. Uzhinsky, and A. S. Vodopianov as well as Deputy Chairman of the Council N. N. Agapov and Scientific Secretary of Council V. A. Arefiev.

A. I. Malakhov expressed his hope that new dissertation councils in JINR will also operate successfully.