On 26 April, the JINR International Conference Centre hosted a meeting of the JINR Science and Technology Council (STC) chaired by Elena Kolganova. The meeting participants heard a report by the JINR Director and discussed new rules for establishing cooperation with the JINR Member States and partners of the Institute, as well as attracting scientific personnel from these countries. JINR Vice-Director Latchesar Kostov and Head of the International Cooperation Department Otilia-Ana Culicov presented information on these agenda items. At the meeting, employees of the Institute and winners of the 2024 JINR grants for Dubna teachers were awarded.

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Grigory Trubnikov provided the STC members with information on the latest results of JINR’s activities to. The JINR Director underlined that the final report on the results of the Institute’s work in 2017-2023 was presented at the end of March, at the session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries (CP). “The CP and the JINR Member States highly appreciated the achievements of the Institute in the past seven years. JINR has successfully fulfilled all the tasks and is currently employing new personnel,” the JINR Director commented.

At the NICA Accelerator Complex, the MPD solenoid is being prepared for cooling to helium temperatures. The assembly of the collider ring has reached the final stage. The technical launch of the main collider systems started in February-March. “In an optimistic scenario, we should be able to prepare the collider for beam injection from the Nuclotron by the end of the year,” Grigory Trubnikov said.

The annual Baikal expedition has successfully finished. A license for the operation of the IBR-2 has been recently obtained. Now, according to the schedule, commissioning of the reactor’s technical systems will start in October, with entry to the operation mode in November, including as part of the facility’s user programme. MLIT has increased its data storage capacity by one and a half times. Manufacturing of components of the MSC-230 Medical Cyclotron has been started. Next year, according to the schedule, specialists of the Efremov Institute of Electrophysical Apparatus will start assembling the facility. The second floor of a new building for the U400-R is currently being constructed at FLNR. The U400-M Accelerator is scheduled to be put into operation in May-June.

Thanks to cooperation between the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia and JINR, one of the best magnetic resonance imaging scanners in Russia in terms of technical specifications will be installed at the Medical Unit №9. The Women’s Health Centre is being developed. Work is underway to modernise the infrastructure for exhibition activities and children’s recreation. The Institute is taking part in the construction of a new university campus on the left bank of the Volga River in Dubna and the reconstruction of the current campus of Dubna University.

Among recent events in international cooperation, Grigory Trubnikov highlighted the strengthening of ties with Cuba. In addition to working meetings, an international school for young scientists took place in Varadero in February. JINR scientists are going to visit Brazil. Four projects were selected for joint implementation with scientific organizations of Mexico and 12 projects for collaborative research with China. The next meetings of the JINR-China Joint Coordination Committee will be held in June and September. This year, more than 50 employees from Egypt, Vietnam, and Mongolia will start working at JINR.

The report by JINR Vice-Director Latchesar Kostov covered the new rules for establishing international scientific and technical partnership at the Joint Institute. Coordinators and persons responsible for cooperation with the JINR Member States, partners, and international organizations were selected from the members of the Institute’s Directorate, advisors and special representatives of the Director, as well as leaders of the laboratories and departments. A draft regulation specifying the functions and duties of coordinators and responsible persons was prepared and presented for discussion with the STC members.

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Head of the JINR International Cooperation Department Otilia-Ana Culicov cited statistics in her report. Out of all the Institute’s employees, 376 are from 36 JINR Member States and partners countries, except from Russia. Most of them include representatives from Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Bulgaria. In recent years, the number of employees from the JINR Member States and partner countries under 35 has decreased, while the number of scientists with a degree has grown. 836 people live in corporate apartments, half of them are Russians. Otilia-Ana Culicov put forward a proposal to introduce measures and mechanisms to support employees that have no national groups in Dubna, in particular, the organization of online Russian language courses for such employees.

The reports by Latchesar Kostov and Otilia-Ana Culicov stimulated a lengthy discussion, which covered such issues as the reorganization of the structure of international scientific and technical cooperation at the Institute, the need to improve the mechanisms for providing corporate housing, the possibility of increasing compensation under trilateral agreements and the size of the loan, adaptation of non-Russian employees, etc.

The JINR Science and Technology Council unanimously supported the nomination of JINR Scientific Leader, RAS Academician Victor Matveev for the Nikolay Bogoliubov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The award is presented every five years for outstanding work in mathematics, theoretical physics, and mechanics.

JINR Director awarded JINR grants to 12 teachers from Dubna schools. He noted that the competition has been held in the science city for about 20 years. “This year, we doubled the grant size and decided to include primary school teachers and additional education teachers to the list. Starting next year, an additional category will be introduced for teachers whose experience does not exceed 10-15 years,” Grigory Trubnikov said. The employees of the Joint Institute received departmental awards from the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of Russia and Rosatom.

Victor Ivanov, Elena Kolganova, Vladimir Nikitin, Yury Panebrattsev, Anatoly Sidorin, Sergey Sidorchuk, Alexander Sorin received the title of Honorary Worker of Science and High Technologies of Russia.

Nikolay Antonenko, Andrey Dolbilov, Alexander Karpov, Dmitry Peshekhonov, Evgeny Strokovsky, Evgeny Syresin were presented with Honorary Certificates of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of Russia.

Yury Anisimov, Boris Batyunya, Sergey Bogomolov, Mikhail Vasiliev, Viсtor Karpinsky, Yury Kopach, Egor Lychagin, Alexander Malakhov, Nikolay Semin, Nikolay Topilin, Alexey Trubnikov, Yury Usov, Anton Kharevich were awarded with Rosatom Honorary Certificates.

Appreciation certificates of the Ministry of Construction Complex of the Moscow Region were sent to Leonid Tikhomirov and Alexander Brun.