About what the newspaper wrote on this day

16 years ago

No. 22 (3961), 29 May, 2009

The delegation of the International Science and Technology Centre headed by the Executive Director Mr. Adriaan van der Meer visited JINR. The guests were welcomed by Director of the Joint Institute A.N.Sisakyan, Vice-Director M.G.Itkis and Chief Scientific Secretary N.A.Rusakovich. During the meeting, the guests learnt about the main research areas carried out at JINR, plans for the development of the Institute and discussed issues of cooperation between JINR and ISTC. The meeting was attended by Heads of all laboratories. During their visit to JINR, the delegation of the Centre visited FLNR.

After the meeting with Directorate, Mr. Adriaan van der Meer kindly agreed to give a short interview to the weekly:

- The goal of our visit to JINR is to learn about how ISTC-funded projects are implemented. We currently fund seven projects at the Joint Institute. In general, over the 15 years of our cooperation, we have supported 33 scientific and technological projects, allocating more than 4 million dollars for their implementation. The main area of funding is nuclear physics but we also support new areas, such as the development of nuclear-physical medical devices. It is very important for us that research that starts as fundamental research will end up as a finished product on the market, bringing real benefits to people. Learning about the Institute's experimental facilities, we will select an experimental facility which ISTC will focus on mostly.

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A videoconference of the members of the Machine Advisory Committee (Committee of Advisors on Accelerator Problems, MAC) on the Nuclotron-M and NICA projects was held at VBLHEP.

Richard Lednicky that emphasized the importance of the NICA project for the Institute and wished the participants successful work, made an opening speech from JINR Directorate. The work of the Conference was chaired by MAC Chairman Boris Sharkov, one of the leaders of the terawatt storage project at ITEP, head of the Russia-FAIR Centre. The issue of his appointment as Scientific Leader of FAIR, a company currently established in Darmstadt that will implement this international project, has now been practically met.

The conference programme included two reports dedicated to the current state of affairs at the VBLHEP accelerator complex and to the progress in the development of a new accelerator-collider complex. In the first report, VBLHEP Deputy Director G.V.Trubnikov described the progress of the Nucleotron-M project. He emphasized that in a very short period of time, really great work has been implemented: the modernization of the accelerator vacuum system is in its final stage, the components of the cryogenic complex have been radically updated, control and diagnostic systems are currently developed and development of ion sources of the required intensity is underway. At the end of the report, all MAC members and experts took turns to ask questions and express their opinions.

Igor Meshkov presented a report on the progress of the project development of the new accelerator complex, focusing on the changes in the concept of its construction that occurred in the last six months.

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On 1-30 April, the XIII International Workshop "Nucleation theory and its applications" was held at BLTP. It was attended by 60 representatives of scientific centres of Belarus, Hungary, Germany, Russia, USA, Ukraine and JINR... The meeting, organized by BLTP together with the University of Rostock with the financial support of JINR, Heisenberg-Landau Programme, RFBR and DFG, was very successful and was held in an atmosphere of close scientific cooperation. According to the unanimous opinion of the participants, such an effective form of scientific work and cooperation should be carried out in future.

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The round table "Science cities: objects of the country's collective security" organized by the Union for the Development of Science Cities of Russia (UDSCR) was held at the All-Russian Exhibition Centre in Moscow. A wide range of issues related to the prospects of science cities development in crisis and post-crisis times was considered. Heads of a number of science cities of Russia, of city-forming enterprises, representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia made speeches. Members of the Board of the Union of Science Cities took part in the presentation of the exposition "Science Cities of Russia" at the International Salon "Integrated Security" at the All-Russian Exhibition Centre. Under the chairmanship of the Chairman of the Union of Science Cities Academician A.N.Sisakyan, a meeting of the UDSCR Board was held. The concept of development, plan of activities and budget for 2009 were considered. Among the speakers were Academician A.N.Sisakyan, UDSCR Director M.I.Kuznetsov and other members of the Board.

Leading columnist Irina LEONOVICH,
photo by Elena PUZYNINA