On 13–14 February 2025, the JINR International Conference Centre hosted the 137th session of the Scientific Council of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in a hybrid format. The meeting’s participants got acquainted with the Institute’s most recent key events, including the IBR-2 Research Reactor’s test launch after a long shutdown and the opening of the new JINR basic facility, the LINAC-200 Electron Accelerator. The Director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions and Deputy Directors of the Laboratory of Radiation Biology were elected. The Scientific Council approved the decision to award annual JINR prizes for the best papers.

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The session began with the Scientific Council members re-electing academician Sergey Kilin (Belarus) as the SC Co-Chair for the next three years and greeting new SC members Raghunath Sahoo (India) and Yuntao Song (China), who were elected at the session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the Governments of the JINR Member States in November 2024.

In his talk, JINR Director, Academician Grigory Trubnikov presented information on the key results of JINR’s scientific work and international cooperation.

In 2024, the Institute’s employees published 1643 scientific articles. As of January 2025, there were 909 employees at JINR with academic degrees. In 2024, 20 candidates of sciences and 7 doctors of sciences defended their theses in the JINR Dissertation Councils. Last year, more than 900 people participated in the educational programmes of the JINR University Centre. “JINR has exceeded the pre-pandemic figures and is now witnessing an upward trend in terms of almost all main scientific indicators”, the Institute’s Director noted.

The test launch of the IBR-2 Pulsed Reactor at the Laboratory of Neutron Physics after 2.5 years of shutdown was among the long-awaited JINR news. During this time, many reactor’s engineering systems were thoroughly modernised. On 12 February, the IBR-2 operation was resumed; in a few hours, the facility reached a stable power of 250 kW. The reactor will continue reaching its design capacity for several weeks. In the coming months, the reactor will be operating in a test mode for JINR employees. FLNP is developing a new ultracold neutron source for the IBR-2.

Preparations for the NICA Collider launch are underway at the Laboratory of High Energy Physics. In November 2024, beam channels for applied research at ARIADNA were ready. In December, a substation powering the accelerator complex was put into operation. A cryogenic compressor station was launched. The MPD’s solenoid was cooled to a temperature of 4.5 K. The detector is being prepared for the analysis of the first data sets in a fixed target mode. Significant progress was made in analysing the BM@N Experiment’s data. The assembly of the cryomagnetic system, radio frequency stations, the beam transfer lines from the Nuclotron and other elements of the complex, as well as their adjustment, continues. In August, all NICA accelerators, including the collider, will work together for the first time.

Experiments on the synthesis of element 116 of the periodic table using 50Ti and 54Cr beams were carried out at the Superheavy Element Factory at the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in preparation for the synthesis of elements 119 and 120. Work on optimising the acceleration modes of the U400-M Cyclotron continues. In the autumn, the first experiment with helium ions was conducted at the U400-M. The U-400R Cyclotron building was constructed. By 2026, engineering systems are to be installed there. New experimental facilities of the U-400R are being designed. The launch of the DC-140 Accelerator Complex for applied research with heavy ion beams is scheduled for the second half of this year.

Scientists from the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics at the Joint Institute had maintained high publication activity and achieved significant progress in theoretical, mathematical, nuclear, particle, relativistic heavy ion, and solid-state physics as well as materials science. Part of the research results will contribute to JINR’s experimental programmes. Eleven major scientific conferences were organized with the active participation of BLTP, including the Nucleus-2024 International Conference, a session of the Nuclear Physics Section of the Physics Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a Workshop on Physics of Strongly Interacting Systems in China.

In two weeks, the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems will start a new expedition to construct the deep underwater Baikal-GVD Neutrino Telescope. Specialists will install two new clusters and two inter-cluster strings.

The Institute’s employees continue to participate in the international JUNO, NOvA, T2K, LEGEND Neutrino Experiments and the COMET Experiment. Data collection at JUNO will begin in August; the first results will be obtained by 2026. DLNP and MLIT JINR scientists are engaged in both assembling the detector and processing data.

The JINR Director noted the Institute’s contribution to the work of the CERN collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider on the second phase of the modernisation of the ATLAS, CMS, and ALICE Detectors and achievement of new results in the CERN experiments at the SPS.

DLNP radiobiologists, together with colleagues from FLNP and other scientific centres, studied the structural properties of the Dsup tardigrade protein, which makes these animals extremely resistant to adverse environmental conditions.

A lot of data processing and modelling of physical processes is underway at the JINR Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex of the Laboratory of Information Technologies for the Institute’s megascience collaborations and partners. MLIT supports the projects of users from the JINR laboratories and Member States and continues to develop the JINR Digital Ecosystem by updating its administrative services.

The Laboratory of Radiation Biology presented the latest research results, including the studies of molecular action mechanisms of new classes of compounds and their combinations aimed to increase the effectiveness of radiation therapy on tumours and the effect of X-rays on rats’ brains.

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Many meetings and events were organized to advance international cooperation. A JINR delegation attended the 68th IAEA General Conference as observers. Active cooperation, including regular visit exchange, was maintained with the Member States: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, along with partner countries: Argentina, Brazil, India, Pakistan, etc.

Last year, eight major joint projects with the People’s Republic of China were selected for implementation. Cooperation agreements were signed with scientific organizations, departments, and training centres in Brazil, China, and Hungary. Special Representative of the JINR Director for Cooperation with International and Russian Scientific Organizations, Academician Boris Sharkov was re-elected as Vice-President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), and three JINR candidates were selected to participate in the IUPAP commissions.

The Vietnam Minister of Science and Technology visited JINR in September. A delegation from the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute visited Dubna this week. The number of Vietnamese scientists at the Institute continues to grow. “JINR participates in implementing a major infrastructure project of the Government of Vietnam including several accelerators and a research reactor. We are pleased to become a strategic partner of our Member State,” Grigory Trubnikov emphasised.

The JINR Director highlighted that the Russian Federation provides considerable support to the Joint Institute’s projects. Many Russian research institutes and organizations participate in NICA and other JINR projects. In December, the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences visited JINR.

“We have introduced an important initiative announced at the September Scientific Council session: the first issue of the JINR peer-reviewed scientific journal Natural Science Review was published. We plan to issue it quarterly online in English,” Grigory Trubnikov said. In addition, in 2025, the Institute launched a competition of innovative developments among teams of young scientists.

At the end of the presentation, Grigory Trubnikov discussed the awards presented to JINR scientists and Scientific Council members. SC Co-Chair, Academician Sergey Kilin was awarded the Order of Friendship in January for his contribution to developing scientific and technological cooperation between Russia and Belarus. Two young JINR scientists, Evgenii Mardyban (BLTP) and Dmitry Nikiforov (VBLHEP), received the Moscow Region Governor’s Prize.

JINR Programme Advisory Committees’ Chairs Itzhak Tserruya, Valery Nesvizhevsky, and Dénes Lajos Nagy informed the Scientific Council about the recommendations adopted at the meetings of the PACs for particle, nuclear, and condensed matter physics in January 2024.

Sergey Sidorchuk was elected Director of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions for the second five-year term. At the next, 138th SC session, the FLNR Deputy Directors will be elected. The Scientific Council approved Alla Boreyko and Iván Padrón Díaz as Deputy Directors of the Laboratory of Radiation Biology until the end of the term of LRB Director Aleksander Bugay.

At the end of the session’s first day, the Scientific Council members and the JINR Directorate representatives took part in the ceremony of launching a new DLNP JINR main facility, the LINAC-200 Accelerator, which will provide electron beams for a wide range of user tasks. In the ongoing commissioning run, the accelerator operates at an electron energy of up to 200 MeV. DLNP, VBLHEP, and FLNP at JINR jointly implemented the project.

On 14 February, young researchers Aleksei Slivin (VBLHEP), Dmitriy Pugachev (FLNR), and Anton Rutkauskas (FLNP) made presentations recommended by the Programme Advisory Committees for the Scientific Council session.

JINR Vice-Director Sergey Dmitriev announced the jury’s decision on awarding the annual JINR prizes, approved by the Scientific Council. The Scientific Council appointed Professor Sakin Jabarov (High Attestation Commission under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan) a new member of the Programme Advisory Committee for Condensed Matter Physics.

The title of Honorary JINR Doctor was awarded to Mahmoud Sakr, Culture and Science Counsellor, Head of the Education Mission of the Embassy of Egypt in Japan, former President of the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, first Plenipotentiary Representative of the Arab Republic of Egypt to JINR, for his great personal contribution to increasing the participation of the Arab Republic of Egypt in JINR’s scientific activities and strengthening scientific cooperation.

The 138th Scientific Council session will take place on 15–16 September 2025.