The Federation Council Committee on Science, Education and Culture held its guest meeting in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The meeting was devoted to major fields of and prospects of the development of international scientific and technical cooperation in the framework of the implementation of the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation

Interview after the guest meeting in Dubna

At the end of the guest meeting of the Federation Council Committee on Science, Education and Culture, Speaker of the Committee Lilia Gumerova, JINR Director Academician Victor Matveev, JINR First Vice-Director Grigory Trubnikov, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Sergey Lyulin and Governor of the Novosibirsk region Andrei Travnikov gave their comments on the milestones of the event to mass media.

Lilia Gumerova opened the press conference: “We have worked out the guest meeting of our Committee in detail as far as many issues on the implementation of our national project “Nauka” and the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the country are related to international cooperation. The preliminarily developed draft decision was generally supported. Moreover, we have received a number of new proposals and ideas from governors, representatives of the scientific community, experts and heads of scientific organizations. I would like to express gratitude to heads of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research for an opportunity to discuss such an important topic here, in the place providing the most comfortable platform, in my opinion, the place with a considerable experience in this field, world-level results and, of course, proposals on how to improve the activity… We are taking with us a set of proposals on improving the legislation and we will work it out together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and relevant ministries. The idea of scientific visas, for example, would allow our scientists to take an active part in international cooperation. There are also some limitations on attracting leading world-level experts for teaching at universities and schools nowadays. These are the steps to take immediately. Many ideas requiring solutions were presented. This applies to the allocation of additional funds, adjustment of governmental programmes…We offer to hold the “JINR Days” on the site of the Federation Council. And we got very interested in the NICA project that deserves to be known by all the senators. In addition, we highlight a number of projects that we, as a chamber of regions, can implement with the help of our colleagues-senators to promote ideas being implemented in the Institute. It includes training programmes for teachers, opportunities to send students for internships and some other ideas. In general, we had an interesting, profound and, we may say, human discussion. There was not a single indifferent speech, and each participant contributed to a particular idea, expressed their thoughts for the important task of promoting Russian science and cooperation in international space to be carried out and to serve for the benefit of humanity.”

“I find it very significant that the speakers noted the importance of international cooperation. Russia has been, is and will be a part of this large-scale international task on research and developments,” Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of Russia Sergey Lyulin said. “Now, a series of large mega-science facilities is being constructed, and at the same time, we discuss even minor details, like how to improve legislation to make interaction at the international level easier, how to create the infrastructure so that young scientists experienced in direct cooperation with Western colleagues can live and work in our country. All these issues are significant and it is important for the Ministry to grasp the whole picture, the entire landscape of international cooperation starting from such projects as Mega-grant to mega-science projects requiring enormous financing but providing great scientific results. In this regard, it is a pleasure that not only colleagues from Dubna are present here but also a big delegation from Novosibirsk have come where the SKIF complex is being created. There were representatives of Russian science cities as well… It is very important to determine the growth points that become drivers for not only the economy but human creative development. This should help also to preserve scientific and technical potential created before us that we should treat very carefully and scrupulously and that we should protect. It was a pleasure for me to be here again and to get involved in live communication, to see the dynamics of processes taking place in Dubna.”

JINR First Vice-Director, RAS Academician Grigory Trubnikov answered the question about the Institute’s operation and international cooperation during the pandemic: “I would like to start with gratitudes to mass media represented today by ITAR-TASS, Scientific Russia, 360 Channel and many others. In this time of barriers created by obvious reasons, we should minimize large-scale meetings, and thanks to you, the whole country heard that international scientific and technical cooperation is the priority of the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation and could join the discussion of these issues. In these challenging conditions, the most important thing is to protect human lives. JINR operates due to the highest world standards of compliance with quarantine measures and measures aimed to protect the health of our staff members, their families and the city at large. Our forums and symposiums are successfully held, we have not missed a single one. The Institute’s Science and Technology Council operates regularly, actively gathers up to 200 participants in the video conference format, candidate and doctor dissertation are actively defended online. We report on our latest and brightest scientific results at the most prestigious conferences. And the operation of the basic facilities almost did not stop… The construction of the NICA mega-science project was not stopped for a single day as far as objects included in the National project are the issues of special attention from the Government of the Russian Federation, so, the NICA mega-science project is being implemented in compliance with the strict quarantine rules without losing the pace. Of course, the quarantine has brought some difficulties into our interaction with foreign and domestic suppliers and we have obvious progress in some stages and systems. Talking about our key partners in the Russian Federation, I am glad that Governor of the Novosibirsk region is here today and he presents a complex of institutes and enterprises of the region that construct the NICA mega-science project together with us. Colleagues work at the limits and try to keep to the schedule. I would like to thank the Novosibirsk region and you personally, Andrei Alexandrovich, your colleagues and all the heads of institutes, as well as all the organizations and companies of Russia who do not cease the implementation of our project. Such large-scale projects can only be implemented by joint efforts.”

Victor Matveev, RAS Academician, JINR Director continued the press conference: “We are glad to have an opportunity to be participants of this event at which the issues of science, education and culture have been discussed, as well as their contribution to the scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation has been highlighted. We could show the way we implement the programmes entrusted to us, including by the country of the Institute’s location – Russia – and the JINR Member States. An opportunity to report on how we work allowed us to look at our activities from a different perspective. We sincerely want to share our experience, help implement the programmes that have been discussed today. We already do it partially but now we can see that we can do much more. Next year, our Institute will celebrate the 65th anniversary. It is a big date that demonstrates the success of international cooperation of scientists, which makes a valuable contribution to improving the life quality of people and to ensure a positive attitude of society to the future. We strive to continue working on these tasks jointly with the RF Government.”

At the end of the press conference, Governor of the Novosibirsk region Andrei Travnikov spoke about instruments for the development of scientific and educational centres in Russia: “Today, the discussions emphasized that new instruments of scientific and technological development should be combined with those that have been already tested. In particular, there was a proposal to join efforts in the creation of scientific and educational centres and to use opportunities given by Federal Law of Russia No. 216 on the creation of innovative scientific and technological centres. The working group made a different suggestion. For example, to stimulate the use of such an instrument as the complex programmes of scientific and technical development (CPSTD), it is necessary to supplement the selection of programmes on the creation of centres with the obligatory requirement to declare development and protection of minimum one CPSTD when creating a world-level scientific and educational centre. Thus, the combination of various instruments will increase the efficiency of both already existing institutes and newly created ones.”

Video interviews on the “Scientific Russia” channel