The 11th Joint Coordination Committee on cooperation between the Republic of South Africa and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was held on 26-27 June 2012.

RSA was represented by Chief Director of Emerging Research Areas and Infrastructure Dr.Daniel Adams, Director of Department of infrastructure Mr. Charles Mokonoto, RSA-JINR Education Programme Coordinator Dr. Noel Jacobs, Head of Department of iThemba LABS Dr. Simon Mullins and Professor of the University of Cape Town (UCT) Jean Cleymans.

On the JINR side were JINR Vice-Director Professor M.G. Itkis, JINR Chief Scientific Secretary Professor N.A.Russakovich, JINR Deputy Chief Scientific Secretary Dr. D.V.Kamanin, FLNP Director Professor A.V.Belushkin, VBLHEP Deputy Director Professor A.S.Vodopianov, BLTP Chief Scientific Researcher Professor F.Shimkovits and ICD Coordinator O.N. Matyukhina.

The committee’s work started with participation of the South African delegation in the session of the Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics, where the delegation could estimate progress of JINR in development of the NICA/MPD project. A discussion of status and prospects of JINR-RSA cooperation on this project was of a practical nature, in particular, a possibility of production of elements for an accelerator complex at the enterprises of the South African corporation NECSA is considered as a contribution of RSA.

Presentations of JINR specialists and RSA students on joint projects were given at a public meeting of the Committee. Special attention was devoted to educational issues. An increase of interest of South African students to participation in practices in Dubna was noted recently, and therefore the Committee made a request to JINR laboratories to expand a number of training projects. This will also be achieved by attracting of young RSA scientists to management of projects of practices.

The RSA delegation visited the JINR basic facilities and was acquainted with projects implemented on these facilities by the Laboratory of High Energy Physics, Laboratory of Nuclear Problems and Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions.

The Committee was concluded with a meeting of the RSA delegation with JINR Director Academician V.A.Matveev, in his presence a protocol of the meeting of the Committee was signed by co-chairmen. The next meeting of the Committee will be held in Cape Town on 27-29 November 2012 in parallel with the third RSA-JINR Symposium "Models and methods in few-and many-body systems".