A regular meeting of JINR STC was held on November 13, 2015 in the International Conference Hall under the chairmanship of R.V.Jolos.

JINR Chief Scientific Secretary N.A.Russakovich spoke about the preparation of the Seven-Year Plan for the Development of JINR for 2017-2023. He noted that the new JINR seven-year programme considers the traditions and peculiarities of the international research center in Dubna as well as new realities which JINR has to face in the future. The speaker briefly described implementation of the current seven-year plan, its preliminary results, in particular,  on the NICA  and the DRIBsIII projects, modernization of the IBR-2 reactor, and the main directions of development of JINR in 2017-2023. The first discussion of the draft of the new plan was held at the 118th session of the JINR Scientific Council in reports of JINR Deputy Directors. In November, the first edition  of the plan will be presented to the JINR Finance Committee and the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries whose meetings will be held in Minsk. The final version will be approved at the November session of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries 2016.

Yu.K.Potrebenikov, R.V.Jolos, D.V.Peshekhonov, V.A.Bednyakov, M.G.Itkis, D.V.Kekelidze, Yu.Ts.Oganessian, S.N .Dmitriev, R. Lednický,  T.A.Strizh, V.M.Zhabitsky, V.A.Matveev participated in the discussion of the report.

In view of forthcoming discussions of the plan at the meetings of the JINR Finance Committee and the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries, JINR Director V.A.Matveev addressed STC members, first of all, to directors of laboratories and leaders of fields of research with a proposal to develop fundamental objectives for the forthcoming seven-year period and to provide a good understanding to the international staff of the Institute and the wide scientific community of how challenges which JINR will issue in this period correlate to major world trends in development of science and solution of fundamental problems of physics.

JINR Vice-Director G.V.Trubnikov presented at the STC meeting an information about the latest decisions and plans of the JINR Directorate for the personnel and science policy. Preceding his speech, V.A.Matveev asked members of the STC pay maximum attention to the range of issues to be discussed, as they are directly related to improving of the efficiency of JINR and its management system. He also dwelt on the Charter or the Code of Professional Ethics for JINR staff members which project is awaiting discussion. V.A.Matveev expressed his hope that this Code will find understanding among the JINR staff members.

G.V.Trbnikov noted that modern staff policy, information technology (including two components – computing resource and modern digital technologies such as electronic document management, cartography etc.), development of infrastructure (both social and engineering) and youth policy are necessary for successful implementation of the JINR scientific programme. The experience of CERN, the US Department of Energy (DOE), the Helmholtz Foundation (Germany) and several other organizations is important for holding open competitions for scientific positions from leader of research trend or group to scientific researcher.

Special attention should be paid to the leading JINR projects that require more resources, strict execution discipline and special management culture. For their successful implementation it is necessary to create a large international collaboration around four largest scientific projects: NICA, DRIBsIII, the IBR-2 spectrometer complex and the Baikal neutrino telescope. This task cannot be solved without a clear statement of the user policy, international tender procedures, open access to projects and financial discipline.

According to discussions at the meetings of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries (November 2014 and March 2015) and their recommendations, the working group under the JINR Director developed a draft of the JINR Code of Professional Ethics. This charter, said G.V.Trubnikov, describes the high ethical standards of behavior that we set for ourselves, and we have the right to expect our colleagues to uphold these standards. This document is intended to create a favorable work climate in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. It does not duplicate or extend our existing legal rights and obligations.

R.V.Jolos and V.A.Matveev delivered comments.

JINR Chief Engineer G.D.Shirkov presented information on situation with the Medical Unit 9 meaning plans to reduce the hospital, which caused huge perturbation in the city and the Institute, and spilled off far beyond Dubna (see. his comments in the previous issue of the JINR newspaper "Save the hospital" (in russian)). Although representatives of the JINR Directorate and the city Administration managed to defend basic positions in the Ministry of Health of the Moscow region, it is too early to calm down.

Adoption of decisions of the previous October meeting concluded the meeting of the JINR STC.

General information can be found on indico.jinr.ru

Evgeny Molchanov
JINR weekly newspaper "Dubna: science, community, progress"