The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research has begun preparing for the 65th anniversary of its foundation: 250 days are left until the birthday, and the countdown has started. The programme of the jubilee year will include bilateral events in the JINR Member States and Dubna. The infrastructure objects are getting ready for the launch, various informational and educational events will be held.

The official start to the “Year of the 65th JINR Anniversary” will be given in the frames of JINR Days in Bulgaria dedicated to holding a regular session of the Committee of Plenipotentiary Representatives of the Governments of the JINR Member States at the end of November 2020. Nevertheless, extensive preparation is already beginning now, and some steps have been already taken.

On 9 July 2020, an extended online meeting of the JINR Directorate was held the agenda of which included among other issues a discussion of the preparation of events dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Joint Institute. Talking about first practical steps towards the preparation for celebrations, as well as about the milestones of the meeting of the working group of 6 June, JINR Vice-Director S. N. Dmitriev highlighted in his report: “In addition to the development of a plan of festive events in both JINR and the JINR Member States, it is necessary to pay special attention to the preparation of corresponding PR materials. At this stage, it is the main task, and it demands considerable time. It includes a jubilee book, videos, and other elements of the informational campaign the project of which is under development by SID Head B. M. Starchenko. Moreover, we are in for extensive work on the Institute’s exhibition that we have already discussed at our Directorate meetings.”

JINR Director V. A. Matveev opened the working discussion with his presentation in which he said, in particular: “Even though the 65th anniversary is not a milestone birthday in the traditional sense, every five-year period is an occasion for our international Institute not only to sum up the results of previous years but also to set goals for the future. When N. N. Bogoliubov was proposed to postpone an issue for a year, he said that a year for him was almost infinity, and it speaks for itself when it comes to the fate of not a person but of a large institute. It seems like we have celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Institute just recently; it was a great holiday for the entire Institute’s staff. Nowadays, our task is to pay special attention to the Member States and scientists from these countries, all our partners from Russia and abroad who created the Institute’s scientific history by joining their efforts.”

At the meeting, members of the organizing committee discussed the complex of preparatory events for the 65th JINR anniversary and considered in detail the tasks of their organization, as well as paid special attention to the preparation of the thematic exhibition. FLNP Director V. N. Shvetsov, JINR Chief Scientific Secretary A. S. Sorin, Vice-Director R. Lednický, LIT Director V. V. Korenkov, Vice-Director B. Yu. Sharkov, and FLNR Scientific Leader Yu. Ts. Oganessian made comments and proposals on the issue. Talking about the load distribution in the creation of the joint Institute exhibition, JINR First Vice-Director G. V. Trubnikov called the Institute’s scientific laboratories to actively participate in this activity and highlighted the following: “We would like our exhibition to assert itself brightly everywhere: in Dubna, the Moscow Region, the Russian Federation, and all the JINR Member States.”

The preparation of the celebration of the 65th JINR anniversary is underway by a representative organizing committee headed by Director V. A. Matveev and First Vice-Director G. V. Trubnikov. The committee was established by the Order of the Director as of 26 June. This Order also established a working group led by Head of the International Cooperation Department D. V. Kamanin who commented on the first steps in the implementation of the Order and expressed an opinion that the discussion at the Directorate meeting may be considered, in fact, the first meeting of the organizing committee. He also said that the working group had already started working out practical issues of the jubilee preparation, and two days before, its first videoconference meeting was held.

JINR Chief Scientific Secretary A. S. Sorin opened the first meeting of the working group and outlined in his report the main tasks of it, the implementation timeline of particular stages and noted that the celebration of this significant date should contribute to the JINR image improvement. Participants of the meeting reviewed and considered the development of the event plan, including the UC programmes, the preparation of the informational campaign for the 65th JINR anniversary, including the development of emblems, printed materials, the preparation of photo and video materials, communication with mass media. During the meeting, the Directorate made proposals to issue the jubilee book about JINR, the preparation of which had been already started by B. M. Starchenko and his colleagues.

Head of the Department of development of educational programmes Yu. A. Panebrattsev made a presentation of the exhibition dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the JINR foundation. Modern interactive exhibits of the proposed exhibition will cover the key scientific facilities of JINR, the research fields and the history of the JINR development. In the frames of this large-scale exhibition, work on which is planned for completion in three years, guests will be offered to have virtual tours of the JINR facilities and experiments.

At the end of the meeting, the working group discussed initiative proposals for the preparation programme for the upcoming jubilee year. For example, Head of the MC2 project G. G. Stiforov spoke about opportunities of creating a JINR mobile application on the project’s basis.

A specially created section on the JINR website will be devoted to the events organized in the frames of the “Year of 65th JINR Anniversary, the preparation for the official celebration of this significant date, and events related to it.