At the 132nd session of the JINR Scientific Council

Grigory Trubnikov: "This is the most essential stage
of life for the Institute"

JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov gave an interview to representatives of the Institute mass media after the first day of the work of the Scientific Council.

This session of the Scientific Council is very essential for our Institute, since we presented at it not a concept, but a specific development plan for the Institute for 2024-2030. This is a critical stage in the life of the Institute and it was important for us to ensure a comprehensive discussion of the Seven-Year Plan. This was done despite the fact that, due to external circumstances and geopolitical turbulences, participation in the meeting of the Scientific Council for our colleagues and long-term partners from some countries today is a manifestation of a particularly responsible approach to their memberships in the JINR Scientific Council and also shows that these countries are interested in our scientific programme and they do not wish to stand apart from the plans for the further development of the Institute. New members of the Scientific Council, elected by the Committee of Plenipotentiaries at the end of May, representing the science of Mexico, China and Vietnam, also participated in today's meeting. As guests of honor, the session was attended by a large delegation of Vietnam headed by the Ambassador of this country in Russia, including the President of the VINATOM Institute, the largest in the field of atomic energy in Vietnam, the President of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and the new Plenipotentiary Representative of Vietnam to JINR. We have just finished a very interesting meeting-discussion. Vietnam is ready to expand its participation in the Institute, Vietnam is interested in projects in the field of nuclear physics methods and technologies and Vietnam is interested in intensive training of personnel. The country is on the rise of economic development, with a large gradient. Vietnam is one of the founding countries of the Institute and of course, we are ready with pleasure to step into the future together with our Vietnamese colleagues.

Although the session of the Scientific Council was not easy in itself, it left a very positive impression on me. For in the last eight to nine months of this year, we have had such an abundance of good, strong, serious scientific results that it is simply amazing, especially when to take into account external circumstances and the fact that in the first half of the year we have not really come out of Covid-19 pandemic ... In general, the Institute demonstrates amazing performance.

In the first "assembly" of the report, I had more than ninety slides from the laboratories. Each laboratory has serious outstanding results obtained both in Dubna and in Member States, in other countries that we can be proud of and share with the world scientific community with pleasure. All of them have been obtained within the framework of international cooperation. These are wonderful new measurements at the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant. And two new clusters at the Baikal Neutrino Telescope. We have already gained about twenty-five neutrino event candidates that we compare with our colleagues working in Antarctica on IceCube and in the Mediterranean.

This, of course, is also the NICA complex, the capital construction of which is almost being completed. We have assembled two arches of a collider almost two hundred meters long and we are starting to assemble rectilinear gaps, the MPD detector ... Life in the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics is in full swing and on top of all, at this very time, along with the session of the Scientific Council, another session is held at the booster and Nuclotron. A week ago, cooling started and next week we will start working with a beam of heavy ions, adjusting it for the first stage of launching the physical experiment of the "Baryonic Matter at the Nuclotron" collaboration.

Completely unique experiments on the synthesis of the 110th element in Darmstadt have been prepared at FLNR. For the first time in the world, data have been obtained in the hot fusion reaction with calcium-48, it has a minimum cross section and these experimental data are invaluable in order to start work on the synthesis of the 120th element.

At the Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics, there is simply a variety of interesting research in the field of fundamental nuclear physics, refinement of the cross section of new isotopes, energy characteristics and I think, very interesting experiments both with archaeologists studying artifacts of distant history and with biologists studying the ecology of Lake Baikal. Investigations of meteorites have shown their elemental composition with high accuracy. A new breakthrough approach has been patented to improve the efficiency of beam radiation therapy for cancer at the Laboratory of Radiation Biology.

Excellent publications have been produced by theorists. Interestingly, if to look at such a variety of experimental data and theoretical investigations, all of them are maximally focused on the tasks of the Institute. Theorists study both the synthesis of superheavy elements and the neutrino programme and the condensed matter physics. Radiobiologists, as they say, knock on the door, waiting for the applied research programme to start at the NICA complex and prepare equipment so that biological materials can be already studied on the territory of the VBLHEP.

In general, we demonstrate to the whole world that the Institute has not hesitated at all. No, we work with pleasure, recklessly, rolling up our sleeves and thus willingly or unwittingly, we show to the whole world that participation in the work of such an international Institute as JINR is not only a tremendous benefit for Member States, but also a source of a vital state of inspiration for those scientists who participate in the research programmes of the Institute.

The material was prepared by Inna ORLOVA, Evgeny MOLCHANOV, photo by Elena PUZYNINA and Igor LAPENKO