The 25th regular meeting of the Coordinating Committee on the implementation of the Agreement on cooperation and exploiting of facilities between the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and JINR was held on 24 – 25 February 2015.

The German delegation was headed by Director General for the BMBF Department “Large Research Infrastructures and Basic Research” Dr. Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolf. The JINR delegation, consisting of leaders of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics, the Laboratory of Neutron Physics, the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions and the International Cooperation Department, was headed by JINR Vice-Director Grigory Trubnikov.The meeting of the Committee was held in the Ministry in the government quarter of Berlin. The parties discussed the progress on the implementation of the Agreement, exchanged latest information on development of the scientific infrastructure. At the end of the meeting the regular JINR-BMBF Agreement on cooperation for the next three-year period was signed. In general, the basic conditions of the Agreement have not changed significantly. The Commission confirmed the continuation of joint work in current priority directions. However, now the amount of the German contribution and approved themes of projects, which are largely reflecting a balance between the interests of JINR and German organizations, were also recorded for a three-year period. Under this Agreement the annual contribution of BMBF to JINR will be around 1.3 million euros. Approved projects are based on the three-year planning horizon in order to make more effective use of resources.

Despite the fact that over the next three years the amount of funds for joint projects was almost determined, the parties agreed to expand the format of cooperation, especially on large JINR projects: IBR-2M, SHE Factory, NICA. In the frames of these projects it is expected to seek ways to attract additional resources for the development of facilities and participation of German scientists in JINR. The parties noted the necessity to develop formal criteria for successful implementation of the projects in the frames of the Agreement to enhance the transparency of evaluation of cooperation results and improvement of the rules of the competition for funding.

This was the jubilee meeting which is the 25th in a row; due to this at the festive dinner in honour of this event key participants of the Meeting provided a historical overview of how the cooperation was developed, recalled names of remarkable scientists, representatives of ministries and embassies, through which cooperation between JINR and Germany is existing and growing for many years. The participants especially noted the continuous collaboration of Mrs. S. Mueller and FLNR Deputy Director A. G. Popeko – they have taken part in all 25 meetings and made a significant contribution to successful work of the Committee and enhancement of our scientific relations.