In the interview to Report, director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Victor Matveev spoke about the activity of the Institute, joint projects with Azerbaijan and possible opening of its branch in Baku.

– Good afternoon, Victor Anatolievich. The Republic of Azerbaijan is one of the Member States of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Please, tell us about your collaboration with Azerbaijan.

– First of all, we can consider how work with the university is going on in the fields of training young talented personnel. Currently, the training of young specialists, the search for young talents are one of the most important tasks, and for the Institute as well that aims mainly at nuclear research. The role of searching for talents is getting more and more important not only in Russia but also throughout the world. There is a global lack of successful young people, so we really appreciate when Azerbaijan sends us young people to participate in internships and special summer schools. Now we are very interested in the transition from summer schools to a competitive selection of young people, and we see in it the contribution that our Institute can make to the development of science in the Member States in general, and in Azerbaijan, in particular. After studying at JINR, they easily find jobs in their home countries because everyone wants to have talented people in their states, which creates opportunities for us to continue cooperation with these countries. This is a very important area of our collaboration.

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– In the Soviet times, Russia, Azerbaijan and other republics had a common Soviet science; after the collapse, everything was separated. What can you say about the current level of science in Azerbaijan?

– You know, in general, national science does not exist. Of course, each country trains its own personnel, prepares its own conditions for the development of research, but the largest and most important results are obtained by combining the efforts of the best specialists. Moreover, international cooperation ensures more outstanding, strong and advanced results. I see, at least if we consider those colleagues we keep in touch with, that they understand that it is impossible to create all necessary conditions in each country, including experimental ones, therefore cooperation is essential in this respect. But we must, of course, continue working in this direction.

– What other joint projects do you carry out with Azerbaijan, besides educating students?

– There are projects that are being implemented here, in Dubna, with participation of physicists from Azerbaijan, and top-priority mega-science projects, for example, the preparation of experiments at the superconducting collider of heavy ions NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility), a collider of protons and heavy ions that is under construction since 2013 at the Laboratory of High Energy Physics (LHEP) of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in the city of Dubna, Moscow Region. (The planned completion of construction is set on 2020 – ed.) A large group of Azerbaijani scientists works here conducting preparatory work at the highest level.

We always give considerable importance to completion of preparatory work because very soon there will be opportunities for conducting research at the highest level, and now it is very important to get prepared to it, and to find talented staff as well. We see that a lot of common work is being done in the European Research Association in which we jointly participate jointly in advanced projects.

– Are there plans to open a branch of the Institute for Nuclear Research in Baku?

– You know, we talked a lot about it, and we long sought for it. I think the time has come to take such joint projects seriously because this will increase cooperation and make it more effective. Not financial contributions, but intellectual cooperation is important for us, which significantly increases the level of research. Thus, we are planning to create either representative offices of the Institute or JINR branches in the Member States. For example, it is possible to develop virtual laboratories so that each scientist could be in constant contact with others living in the home country and share knowledge and experience. I think Plenipotentiary Representative of Azerbaijan in our country, Nazim Mamedov, is one of those people who will readily take up implementation of this idea. I am very optimistic about the development of our cooperation with Azerbaijan. We have very good prospects.

Iqbal Rustamov