On 1 December, representatives of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research took part in the Topical Issues of Ensuring Scientific and Technological Safety International Scientific and Practical Conference. The conference was dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the State Committee for Science and Technology (SCST) of the Republic of Belarus. JINR speakers presented two key projects determining Institute’s innovative development, namely the NICA Megascience Project and JINR’s large IT infrastructure. In addition, the delegation announced upcoming opening of the JINR cloud computing cluster at JIPNR-Sosny and outlined an initiative to further strengthen ties with Belarusian organizations in terms of innovation and applied research.

The conference aimed to consider ways to enhance the national innovation system of Belarus. The parties exchanged views on issues of interaction with external partners, primarily within the Union State of Russia and Belarus, and with research centres and innovative companies from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The discussion included issues of scientific and technological development as well, exemplified by experiences of individual CIS countries. The participants reviewed priorities in the innovative development of these states.

The JINR delegation consisted of JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov, Vice-Director Vladimir Kekelidze, MLIT Scientific Leader Vladimir Korenkov, JINR Director’s Special Representative for Educational Policy Samvel Harutyunyan, and Deputy Head of the VBLHEP Department of Methodological Research and Innovation Oleg Belov.

Grigory Trubnikov gave a speech congratulating his colleagues on the anniversary. He outlined that SCST, a participant in the Dubna International Innovative Nanotechnology Centre, had been cooperating with JINR since SCST’s foundation. The partnership produced joint fundamental projects in the fields of medicine, research on DNA regeneration processes, satellite systems, computing, and the method of neutron activation analysis in ecology and biomonitoring. SCST contributed to the development of JINR cooperation with Belarusian universities. In the last 30 years =, several thousand highly qualified researchers have been trained. JINR Director announced that in the future, a JINR cloud computing cluster for working with big data would be launched at JIPNR-Sosny near Minsk. This will not be the first such cluster in Belarus. One already operates at the Institute for Nuclear Problems of Belarusian State University.

JINR employees made several reports at the conference. Oleg Belov spoke about solving issues of ensuring national scientific and technological security on the example of the NICA Complex. He noted that megascience projects greatly fostered innovative development, and implementing them generated numerous related inventions and technologies. The report reviewed the current NICA programme in the field of applied research, which is already attracting business partners. In particular, there is partnership in radiation treatment of polymers and improving the properties of high-temperature superconductors.

Vladimir Korenkov made a report on geographically distributed computer infrastructures for large scientific projects. He noted that the IT infrastructure at MLIT JINR had played a combinatory role, integrating the computing for the project into a single geographically distributed computer network.

Samvel Harutyunyan spoke about the role of network research universities in the training of highly qualified scientific staff. The report turned out to be of great interest for the attendees representing the CIS university community.