On 20 December 2018, a traditional new year eve press conference with JINR Director was held. Academician V.A. Matveev spoke about the milestones of the expiring year, answered the questions of journalists of the city media, congratulated the staff of the Institute and citizens of Dubna on New Year.

This was the second year of our seven-year period for which great plans are made. Firstly, they include the construction of the superconducting accelerating complex NICA, study of physics of the unique nuclear state. It also includes, of course, the project of the Factory of superheavy elements and many other projects. We can just consider the unique project of development of the deep underwater neutrino telescope in the Baikal lake attracting the world’s attention. Even now, there are serious reasons to expect that there are extreme processes underway in the space which produce high energy neutrino. Maybe now we witness the birth of a new field of science – neutrino astronomy.

According to the CPP recommendations, this year we sum up the milestones of a 25-year period of the JINR development that we call a new era of our Institute. The start of it resulted from large-scale political, economic changes of the world level. Serious processes took place in numerous JINR Member States, and, first of all, new Russia was born that is now a country providing perfect conditions for work at the Institute. As a result of events that have taken place for these 25 years, starting from signing new agreements, the number of countries possessing membership increased – there are 18 of them. We have also participants called JINR Associate Members, there are 6 of them. Thus, scientists and specialists of 24 countries gathered under one roof. It is a unique alliance of efforts, intellect and cultures of various nations. Since that moment, we have started to state that the main motto of our Institute is “Science bringing nations together”. Our experience gained during 25 years shows that international scientific cooperation is probably one of the supreme values in the modern world.

This year, our main scientific projects were included in the strategic international plans of development of particle physics, fundamental physics and condensed matter physics. That is why our Institute plays a crucial role for all Member States, and, first of all, for Russia. It is one of the effective tools for scientific integration of the Member States into international world science.

Of course, work on extending our geography, attracting other countries and large international organizations to participate in the JINR activities is underway. Recently, the roadmap has been signed for 10-year planned cooperation between Russia, including JINR as an international organization at its territory, and Germany. This significant document opens opportunities for wider cooperation with institutes and specialists of Germany, although they are already involved in our activities. In particular, we consider the FAIR project implemented in Darmstadt and the NICA project implemented in Dubna as one international project, in fact, and we produce superconducting magnets according to the agreement with our German colleagues. Moreover, the roadmap between Russia and France has been signed that includes deeper cooperation of scientists from scientific centres of France with JINR.

If we consider scientific projects of the Seven-Year Plan, then, of course, the major one is NICA. Plans are very ambitious, the work is complicated and is underway at the most advanced level, even more advanced than that of the modern level. That is why it is clear that all the experience we have gained to the present moment is applied for implementation of such projects. Of course, we base on close partner relations with Russian institutes, with institutes of the Member States and on the world experience at large. Now we are happy to realize that we have always made a great contribution to CERN activities, and now CERN greatly contributes to the implementation of projects in Dubna. It is a display of profound respect and acknowledgement of the importance of work conducted in our Institute.

The NICA project will be implemented for several years and large intellectual efforts will be needed. That is why we attach a large importance to the training of young specialists. As far as it is an experimental field of activities, first of all, engineers should be trained, those who already know modern, advanced technologies. That is why following the initiative of Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian, we develop the Higher School of Engineering jointly with the Dubna University. Many people are aware of the importance of this project, and we get a lot of help from the leading research centres of Russia and the Member States. In particular, the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, MSU, MEPhI, MIPT supported this project. Our Institute together with colleagues from the city advanced an idea to establish a lyceum for talented children, and this work is being gradually developed.

The Factory of superheavy elements is a unique project. Many problems crucial for bringing this facility into operation have been solved. We got the license that allows conducting tests of this scientific complex in the nearest future. At the end of the year, the major task of synthesis of element 119 will be tackled. It is a very ambitious task, this is an attempt to answer the question whether there is something beyond the 7th period of the Mendeleev Periodic Table. We are happy that at the end of 2018, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 2019 to be the year of the periodic system of elements. Last year, together with the international community, we discussed a programme that would help understand the importance of fundamental physics at all levels, from schoolchildren to heads of states.

The unique supercomputer called “Govorun”, named after our talented scientist who established the Laboratory of Information Technologies together with M.G. Meshcheryakov, was brought into operation. This supercomputer took the 9th place in the international rating. A large number of scientists from Russia and other countries work at it, model nuclear processes that will be experimentally studied at the NICA collider.

I have already mentioned the deep underwater neutrino telescope in the Baikal lake: now three clusters of photodetectors lowered to a great depth already gather data. In the real-time mode, research is being conducted on search for, study, analysis of the events that caused high-energy neutrino coming from our galaxy. The world is surprised by the energy with which we are developing this field of research because our talented scientists demonstrate a unique ability to move at a high pace.

We conducted very important work on modernization and increasing the quality of the spectrometer set at the pulse reactor IBR-2. Now, it is among the most advanced facilities of such a type.

Nevertheless, we now think about the future prospects for our Institute. A special international group of scientists is engaged in working out a long-term programme of the Institute’s development until 2030 and further. We sent our proposals on the strategy to coordination committees of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The ideas put forward by our scientists are extremely advanced and even ahead of time, so they are now being studied with great interest by international scientific committees to develop a long-term scientific strategy. Our theoretical school established by D.I. Blokhintsev, N.N. Bogoliubov and many other talented scientists is a leading one in the world. So, we should be very optimistic about the future. I believe that the tasks set by the CPP on the creation of a new advanced basis of experimental research in fundamental physics, in the fields of condensed matter, development and application of innovative ideas are being successfully solved.

One more important event of the year is that we implement the decision of the Government of the Russian Federation to grant our Institute the right to independently form a system of certification of the scientific staff, to award scientific degrees of Candidates and Doctors of Sciences. It is of crucial importance for us as far as our Institute is international and, in fact, what we are working on is the only way to create an international certification system.

To attract talented youth to our Institute, to our city, we should create decent living and working conditions for these young people. Therefore, we are working on the development of our social and sports sectors. We are glad that we managed to start the modernization of the stadium “Science”, and there are plans for further work in this direction. We are thinking of how to create new dormitories and hotels. The city has outlined a plan for the construction of a hotel, it is very important for us. We are very pleased with close, creative interaction with the city, the administration, the Council of Deputies in which our researchers are actively working. Now we are optimistic about the plans to improve the urban environment, in particular, planned changes for the embankment of our city.

The bridge, of course, is a great achievement. It is constructed at the most advanced technological level, and we can be proud of the fact that we have such builders. The bridge not only gave a new opportunity to connect the right and the left bank districts of the city. It actually was a symbol of the further development of the city. I was honoured together with the Head of the city and the Chairman of the Council of Deputies to walk it first, and when we reached the middle of the bridge and looked around, we saw how beautiful our Moscow Region and especially our city are! I thought that what we are creating at our Institute – the NICA complex and the Factory of superheavy elements – should be as beautiful as this bridge, and everything should become a symbol of the development of our city, our science.

Galina Myalkovskaya, JINR weekly newspaper