On 27 September 2021, Wave 5 of the INTEREST online student programme started thus opening the second year of its work. This time, 45 students from a dozen and a half countries participated in the programme.

181 people from 28 countries were selected and participated in the first five Waves. Among them, there are undergraduate and PhD students from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan.

During the first year, the programme has shown its strengths: the remote format of interaction between project supervisors and students, offered by the JINR University Centre, allowed bringing together a team of curious and motivated young people from all over the world. At the same time, the programme participants got an opportunity not to make any interruptions in their scientific work due to restrictions on travelling, and continued their research activities under the guidance of highly qualified JINR specialists.

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Indeed, the programme is convenient for both supervisors and students, which is confirmed by the constantly growing base of scientific projects and the increasing number of applications from potential participants.

By Wave 3, we had reached a stable number of participants of about 45 students and postgraduates from around a dozen countries. There are also the first signs of success: for some students and supervisors, their project work has resulted in the prospects for full-time internships, joint publications, and continued cooperation.

The start of the next Wave, the sixth in a row, is planned for 14 February 2022. Scientific projects will be collected until 17 January. We invite all JINR researchers to post their projects on the programme website interest.jinr.ru.