JINR First Vice-Director Grigory Trubnikov took part in a round table “Science cities – drivers of innovative development of Russian regions” organized in the frames of the Business programme of the IX International Forum of Innovative Development “Open Innovations” on 20 October.

G. V. Trubnikov made a presentation “Science cities – drivers of innovative development of Russian regions: successful expertise exemplified by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the city of Dubna”. Participants of the round table discussed the unique experience of Dubna information of comprehensive attractiveness of the city for human capital from all over the world. Grigory Trubnikov highlighted that the driver of the Dubna development as of the scientific and research centre in the fields of fundamental and applied science and technologies is JINR.

Participants of the round table agreed that the development of innovations requires close interaction between science, government agencies, and business at the federal, regional and municipal levels. Representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia, heads of science cities and subjects of the Russian Federation with high scientific and technical potential discussed the best practices of such interaction, as well as necessary additional measures to support the key scientific-technical and innovative projects, in particular, in the mega-science realm, world-level scientific centres, innovative scientific and technological centres, etc.

“A unique complementary model of interaction between the science city of Dubna and one of the leading international scientific centres JINR has formed in Dubna,” G. V. Trubnikov noted. “Such an environment allows achieving synergetic effects in the use of the potentials of the status of the “science city of the Russian Federation” and the status of the international intergovernmental organization for strengthening scientific and technical cooperation in the interests of the accelerated scientific-technological and innovative development of both the Moscow region and the Russian Federation. The symbiosis of the science city and the international organization with a great scientific and technological potential contributes a lot to the attraction of highly qualified young specialists from abroad, as well as to the strengthening of the attractiveness of JINR and the Russian Federation as the country of the Institute’s location.”

At the same time, the JINR representative highlighted the importance of further development of the competitiveness of science cities. Particularly, Grigory Trubnikov gave positive feedback on the idea to provide science cities of the Russian Federation with special legal regimes of activities similar to those in force in the Skolkovo innovation centre, as well as those provided for innovative scientific and technological centres. “In addition, it is possible to increase the investment attractiveness by making the regime of custom, social issues more favourable,” G. V. Trubnikov noted.

Moreover, JINR initiatives in the fields of digitalization of the Institute’s activities aimed to strengthen the staff potential of the organization were mentioned. In particular, Grigory Trubnikov spoke about the “Virtual Laboratory” project, the “INTEREST” programme, and other initiatives ensuring the development of international scientific and educational cooperation with JINR and the attraction of new partners into its orbit in the conditions of restrictive measures during the pandemic.