Institute day by day

International cooperation and personnel issues
on the agenda of the STC meeting

On 26 April, at the International Conference Centre, a meeting of the JINR Science and Technology Council was held chaired by Elena Kolganova. The participants of the meeting were delivered a report from JINR Director and discussed new rules for establishing cooperation with JINR Member States and partners of the Institute, as well as attracting scientific personnel from these countries. Information on these agenda items was presented by JINR Vice-Director Lachesar Kostov and Head of the International Cooperation Department Otilia-Ana Culicov. At the meeting, the awarding ceremony of employees of the Institute and JINR grants for Dubna teachers in 2024 was held.

Grigory Trubnikov presented to the members of the Science and Technology Council information on the latest results of JINR activities. JINR Director highlighted that at the end of March, at the session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries, the final report on the results of JINR's activities in 2017-2023 was presented. "The CP and the JINR Member States highly appreciated the results of the Institute in the past seven-year period. The Institute has coped with all the tasks and currently adds new personnel," JINR Director commented.

At the NICA accelerator complex, the MPD solenoid is currently prepared for cooling to helium temperatures. The assembly of the collider ring has approached the final stage. The technical launch of the main collider systems started in February-March. "In the absence of force majeure, we should be able to prepare the collider for beam injection from the Nuclotron by the end of the year," Grigory Trubnikov said.

The next annual Baikal expedition has been successfully completed. A license for the operation of IBR-2 has recently been issued; at present, according to the schedule, the technical start-up of the reactor will start in October with entry into operating mode in November, including within the framework of the custom User Programme. MLIT has increased its data storage capacity by one and a half times. Manufacturing of components of the medical cyclotron MSC-230 has started; next year, according to the schedule, NIIEFA specialists should start assembling it. The second floor of a new building for the U400-R is currently constructed at FLNR. The U400-M accelerator is scheduled to be put into operation in May-June.

Within the framework of cooperation with the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia, with the participation of JINR, an equipment for the Women's Health Centre and one of the best magnetic resonance imaging scanners in Russia in terms of peculiarities will be used at the Medical Unit №9. Work is underway to update the infrastructure for children's recreation and exhibition activities. The Institute participates in the construction of a new university campus on the left bank in Dubna and in the reconstruction of the current campus of the Dubna University.

Among recent events in the field of international cooperation, Grigory Trubnikov highlighted the development of cooperation with Cuba: in addition to working meetings, an international school for young scientists was organized in Varadero in February. JINR scientists are going to visit Brazil. Four joint projects were selected for implementation with scientific organizations in Mexico and 12 projects for cooperation with China. The next meetings of the JINR-China Coordination Committee will be held in June and September. This year, more than 50 new employees from Egypt, Vietnam and Mongolia will start working at JINR.

The report of JINR Vice-Director Lachesar Kostov was dedicated to the new rules for organizing international scientific and technical cooperation at the Joint Institute. From among the members of the Institute's Directorate, advisors and special representatives of Director, Directorate of laboratories and departments, coordinators and persons responsible for cooperation with JINR Member States and partners, as well as with international organizations were determined. A draft regulation was developed that specifies the functions and responsibilities of coordinators and responsible persons. The regulations were presented for discussion with members of the Science and Technology Council.

Head of the JINR International Cooperation Department Otilia-Ana Culicov cited statistics in her report: out of all the Institute's employees, 376 are represented by 36 JINR Member States and partners, in addition to Russia. Most of them include representatives from Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria. In recent years, the number of employees from JINR Member States and partners under 35 has decreased, while at the same time, the number of scientists with a degree has increased. 836 people live in serviced apartments, half of them are Russians. Otilia-Ana Culicov put forward a proposal for measures and mechanisms to support employees that have no national groups in Dubna, in particular, the organization of online Russian language courses for such employees.

The reports of Lachesar Kostov and Otilia-Ana Culicov gave rise to an extensive discussion, including discussion of such issues as the reorganization of the structure of international scientific and technical cooperation at the Institute, the need to revise the mechanisms for providing official housing, the possibility of increasing compensation under trilateral agreements and the size of the loan, adaptation of non-Russian employees, others.

The JINR Science and Technology Council unanimously supported the nomination of JINR Scientific Leader, RAS Academician Victor Matveev for the N.N.Bogolyubov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The award is presented every five years for outstanding work in the fields of mathematics, theoretical physics and mechanics.

JINR Director awarded JINR grants to 12 teachers from Dubna schools. He noted that the grant competition has been held in the science city for about 20 years. "This year, we doubled the size of the grant and it was decided to add primary school teachers and additional vocational education teachers to the list of subject teachers. Starting next year, an additional category will be introduced for teachers whose experience does not exceed 10-15 years," Grigory Trubnikov said. The employees of the Joint Institute were awarded departmental awards from the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Rosatom State Corporation.

The title "Honorary Worker of Science and High Technologies of the Russian Federation" was awarded to Viktor Ivanov, Elena Kolganova, Vladimir Nikitin, Yury Panebrattsev, Anatoly Sidorin, Sergey Sidorchuk, Alexander Sorin.

Nikolay Antonenko, Andrey Dolbilov, Alexander Karpov, Dmitry Peshekhonov, Evgeny Strokovsky, Evgeny Syresin were awarded with Honorary Diplomas from the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

Yury Anisimov, Boris Batyunya, Sergey Bogomolov, Mikhail Vasiliev, Viktor Karpinsky, Yury Kopach, Egor Lychagin, Alexander Malakhov, Nikolay Semin, Nikolay Topilin, Alexey Trubnikov, Yury Usov, Anton Kharevich were awarded with Certificates of Honor from the Rosatom State Corporation.

Letters of Gratitude from the Ministry of Construction Complex of the Moscow Region were sent to Leonid Tikhomirov and Alexander Brun.

JINR Press Office