On 22 March, under the chairmanship of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of Georgia at JINR Arsen Khvedelidze, a regular session of the Committee of Plenipotentiary Representatives of the Governments of the Member States of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was held. Members of the CP learnt about the main scientific results of the Institute, its activities in the field of personnel training and the development of social infrastructure. As a result of the meeting, the Institute’s budget for 2024 was approved and changes were recorded in a number of JINR documents. Academician Yuri Oganessian was awarded the title of Corresponding Member of the Cuban Academy of Sciences.

Plenipotentiary representatives of all JINR Member States attended the meeting of the CP sessions in person. The meeting was attended by representatives of the relevant ministries of Kazakhstan and Cuba, the IAEA and the Arab Atomic Energy Agency, Directorate of the Dubna city district and the Dubna State University.

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At the beginning of the session, Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Environment of the Republic of Cuba Armando Rodriguez Batista announced the awarding of the title of Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Cuba to the Scientific Leader of the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at JINR Yuri Oganessian.

Vice-Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan Darkhan Ahmed-Zaki noted: “JINR provides a unique opportunity for our scientists and students to develop their skills, to gain knowledge and experience and also to participate in international collaborations. Cooperation with JINR meets our priorities, including development in the field of new technologies and innovations.”

Deputy Director General of the IAEA Mikhail Chudakov conveyed greetings from the Agency’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to the members of the CP. He noted the current wide cooperation and expected to expand cooperation and also invited JINR to take part in a number of events held by the agency in 2024.

Minister-Counselor for Science and Technology Affairs of the Chinese Embassy in the Russian Federation Zhou Yu congratulated the Joint Institute on the 68th anniversary of its founding. “JINR is one of the best institutes of nuclear physics, with a leading position in the world. It is especially important for us that a large number of scientific researchers from China have worked here. Based on a long-term successful history of cooperation, mutually beneficial cooperation between JINR and Chinese research institutes and universities develops dynamically at present,” he admitted.

JINR Director Academician Grigory Trubnikov presented a report on new scientific, scientific and technological results and the most important events related to scientific and educational activities and international cooperation of JINR to the CP members. At the 135th session of the Scientific Council of the Institute, held in February, the results of the seven-year plan were very highly appreciated.

The complex of buildings and structures of the first stage of NICA is 99% complete. Grigory Trubnikov announced the signing of an assignment agreement in early March – the assignment of the rights of the general construction contractor from the Austrian company Strabag to the Russian TES LLC. The new general contractor has extensive experience working with nuclear energy facilities and developing nuclear power plant units. Construction of the NICA Innovation Centre will begin in June. The commissioning of a cryogenic compressor station is also scheduled for this summer. The production and cryogenic testing of the collider magnetic system components have been completed; ready for commissioning of the power supply system for its components. The next commissioning session at the NICA complex is scheduled for the end of the year.

Grigory Trubnikov noted with gratitude the activities of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation to support scientific teams participating in megascience projects. JINR Director expressed great gratitude to the key partners in the NICA project from the JINR Member States, as well as from the People’s Republic of China for their assistance in developing the NICA collider subsystems.

Grigory Trubnikov called the commissioning of the superconducting solenoid of the facility the main task of the MPD collaboration at NICA. At present, cryogenic testing of the solenoid has begun, the temperature has been reached -50°C. Cooling of the solenoid to a temperature of 4.5 K is scheduled for September. In the BM@N experiment, statistically significant signals of Λ- and Ξ-hyperons and the K⁰_s meson were obtained for further physical analysis. The ARIADNA collaboration for applied research at the NICA complex currently develops: two new stations have been commissioned – SIMBO and ISCRA.

Over the past year, more than a hundred JINR employees extensively participated in CERN experiments. The Institute’s successful participation in collaborations at CERN with the fulfillment of all its obligations was noted, as well as the high level of JINR’s work under the programme of the second stage of modernization of the ATLAS, CMS, and ALICE detectors at the LHC.

The 2024 expedition to develop the Baikal-GVD deep-sea neutrino telescope progresses successfully; as a result, the total number of installed modules will reach 4000. JINR is widely involved in the implementation of two large neutrino experiments: RICOCHET (ILL, France) and JUNO (China).

A series of unique experiments is currently carried out at the Superheavy Element Factory. In the reaction ⁵⁴Cr+²³⁸U, two events were observed with the new isotope ²⁸⁸Lv that is an important step in preparation for the synthesis of the new 120th element in the reaction ⁵⁴Cr+²⁴⁸Cm. The U-400M cyclotron is under modernization, the DC-140 accelerator is under construction and the U-400R accelerator hall is currently constructed. “After the U400-M is put into operation, the beam intensity will increase that will significantly expand the capabilities of the experimental programme for studying light exotic nuclei,” Grigory Trubnikov noted.

Fundamental and applied research areas related to life sciences and condensed matter physics widely develop, thanks to the development of an interlaboratory research programme, in particular, at the Laboratory of Radiation Biology.

Significant results in the field of theoretical physics of elementary particles, the atomic nucleus, condensed matter physics and modern mathematical physics, aimed, in particular, at supporting the JINR experimental programme have been gained at the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics.

Preparations for the launch after maintenance of the IBR-2 reactor, the 40th anniversary of commissioning of which was celebrated this year, are currently completed. A complex of spectrometers is currently modernized and developed: a backscattering detector with a wide aperture BSD-A for a high-resolution Fourier diffractometer, a small-angle neutron scattering detector SANSARA and an inelastic neutron scattering spectrometer in inverse geometry BJN are currently developed.

The JINR Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex develops successfully. The capacity of the Govorun SC, the fastest supercomputer in the JINR Member States, has been increased. The DIRAC platform has been significantly reoriented to support the megascience projects NICA and Baikal-GVD.

Over the past year, 31 theses were defended at JINR: 26 candidate’s and five doctoral. JINR maintains high publication activity at a level of about 1400 publications per year. At the same time, intensive work is underway to publish a new JINR scientific journal.

In terms of the number of students and young scientists that are involved in training programmes at the Institute, JINR has overcome the consequences of the Covid period. The branch of Moscow State University in Dubna has started accepting students at two master’s departments. It is expected to open two more departments: radiochemistry and radiobiology, as well as computer science.

Significant events were held in the field of international scientific and technological cooperation. In February, a JINR scientific school was held in Cuba. With the A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (YerPhI) signed an agreement to expand cooperation. Work with associate members of JINR has been intensified. At the end of last year, the 9th meeting of the JINR-Serbia Joint Coordination Committee was held. In January, a meeting between JINR Director and Head of the largest research organization in the field of nuclear physics in South Africa iThemba LABS was held. As for the new partner countries, cooperation develops extensively: last year, a meeting of the JINR-Mexico Coordination Committee was held, at which four joint projects were proposed for implementation. A large delegation from the relevant Brazilian ministry visited Dubna to discuss prospects for cooperation. The Ambassador of Argentina to the Russian Federation visited JINR. In December, the JINR Information Centre was opened in Tunisia. The second meeting of the China – JINR expert working group has recently been held.

Grigory Trubnikov reported on the Joint Institute’s support for the IAEA Lise Meitner programme that provides internships for women working in the nuclear industry. The Institute intensifies its participation in the International Decade of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDBSSD) under the auspices of UNESCO and acceding to the Earth Charter.

JINR Director noted that, on the initiative of the Institute, an international innovation science and technology park in Dubna will be constructed, including, in particular, the construction of a modern university campus. The project involves the comprehensive development of adjacent territories and will be implemented jointly with high-tech partners from JINR Member States and partner countries, the Dubna SEZ, regional and federal executive authorities, as well as the Dubna State University.

The Institute expects a significant increase in the number of researchers from Vietnam, Egypt, and Mongolia. In order to implement the human resources development programme, the number of JINR office housing will be increased by several dozen apartments. The plans include the construction of a residential building of the JINR dispensary in Ratmino and the reconstruction of two more buildings. Renovations are underway at the Dubna Hotel and the JINR International Conference Centre.

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Head of the Department of Budgetary and Economic Policy of the Institute Nikolay Kalinin presented updated information on the execution of the JINR budget for 2023 and on the draft JINR budget for 2024. “The main areas of transferring funds are the provision and implementation of our scientific projects, the development of engineering and technological infrastructure,” the speaker commented. The Institute has widely launched a programme of support for retiring employees. The CP approved the execution of the budget for 2023 and the revised JINR budget for 2024.

Chairman of the JINR Finance Committee, Deputy Head of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science Andrey Omelchuk spoke about the results of the FC meeting on 21 March. The working group under the Chairman of the CP on financial issues of JINR for the next meetings of the FC and the CP will work out an approach to determining the annual contributions of Member States, taking into account the annual increase in the JINR budget by 5% during 2024-2030. AK Korsakov and Partners LLC was again selected as an external auditor of JINR’s financial activities.

“The Russian Ministry of Education and Science positively evaluates the attention that JINR pays to the international scientific agenda and deepening cooperation with other countries. The number of partners of the Institute today increases, work is underway with various international organizations – this is a rather positive practice, since the geography and representation of the Institute around the world grows, in particular, contacts strengthen from Latin America, in the Middle East, North Africa. It is also impossible not to note the strengthening of the Institute’s collaborations with leading Russian organizations. JINR, together with the Kurchatov Institute and the Institute of System Programming developed a consortium to provide megascience class research infrastructure. Soon, JINR will be able to provide Member States with access to other large experiments and megascience facilities that are currently developed in Russia, including thanks to the national project “Science and Universities”: for example, the SKIF synchrotron, the PIK reactor, the completely new SILA facility that is about to appear on the horizon until 2033 and others. This uniting link needs to be strengthened, including through current measures to popularize scientific activity and physics as a discipline in general among schoolchildren and students, in order to avoid problems of training highly qualified personnel and ensure the influx of scientists into this field,” Deputy Head of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia Andrey Omelchuk noted.

The CP members approved the draft List of JINR Officials that after the session will be sent to each plenipotentiary representative of the Governments of the JINR Member States for agreement with the Governments of the JINR Member States. Also at the session, the Rules of Procedure of the JINR CP and FC were approved in new editions.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the IBR-2 research reactor, it was decided to name the area in front of the reactor at the DLNP technological site after one of its founders Vladimir Ananyev, the chief engineer of the Laboratory of Neutron Physics that was at the origins of the development of both the laboratory and the IBR-2 reactor and the one that went all the way from design to construction and launch of a unique facility. At the end of the session, Grigory Trubnikov addressed all JINR employees: “I want to thank the entire staff of the Institute, everyone involved in the remarkable achievements that were discussed today. I am proud of our employees,” JINR Director concluded.

The next session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries will be held on 15-16 November, 2024. The day before it, the next meeting of the Finance Committee will be held.