JINR representatives participated in the 5th Meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Research Infrastructure (BRICS GRAIN), which took place from 23 to 25 October 2023 in Stellenbosch, the Republic of South Africa. Chief Scientific Secretary of JINR Sergey Nedelko, Director of the University Centre Dmitry Kamanin, and Deputy Chief Scientific Secretary Alexey Zhemchugov represented the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at the event.

Information on the current state of the JINR research infrastructure and plans for its further development was presented at the meeting. Participants of the event heard presentations on opportunities for international scientific cooperation and training programmes. The head of the JINR delegation Sergey Nedelko made a report on the status of the NICA Accelerator Complex implementation and four collaborations of this megascience project. In particular, for the first time, members of the BRICS GRAIN Working Group had an opportunity to learn about the works, plans, and prospects of the ARIADNA applied research collaboration.

The delegation’s programme included work visits to research infrastructure facilities in the Cape Town area: the iThemba LABS accelerator laboratory, the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), and the South African Population Research Infrastructure Network (SAPRIN) office.

The delegation of the Joint Institute held a number of meetings aimed at developing a partner network in the BRICS countries alongside the event. In particular, together with their colleagues from South Africa, JINR representatives discussed the next regular meeting of the JINR-RSA Joint Coordination Committee that will be held next year and the planned joint scientific events.

The programme of the current meeting followed the course set out at the previous meetings of the Working Group in Shanghai and Novosibirsk. The first Meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Research Infrastructure Development took place at JINR in 2017.