On 5 October 2020, Wave 1 of the INTEREST programme officially started. It is attended by 24 participants from Cuba, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, India, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Uzbekistan. For the next 4-6 weeks, in the online format, they are going to work on the projects developed by the staff members of BLTP, VBLHEP, FLNR, FLNP, LIT, and DLNP. The joint work of students and supervisors has already begun: orientation meetings have been held, the main stages of the working schedule have been outlined, and tasks have been set.

On 7 October, an online meeting with the INTEREST Team was held for the Wave 1 participants. The students were greeted by Director of the JINR University Centre Prof S. Z. Pakuliak. He gave a lecture on JINR and the main fields of research conducted by its laboratories, as well as on the opportunities offered by the Institute to students and young specialists. During the meeting, the students got acquainted with the staff members of the University Centre and each other and were also given an opportunity to ask their questions.

Since the INTEREST programme started quite recently and its format is still being tested, the participants were offered to take part in shaping its content. Working on the projects is a constant. The rest is optional and can be added at the request of the students. Therefore, after the lecture, the participants were asked to think of a list of topics most interesting to them. The recently emerged format of online tours was also mentioned as one of the possible ways to get closer to the laboratories of the Institute.

We hope that in the future more students and JINR specialists will get INTERESTed with us.

Information by UC JINR