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JINR - Mexico: a successful start

The first meeting of the Joint Committee of the National Council of Humanities, Science and Technologies of Mexico CONAHCYT and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was held in Mexico City, where scientists from the two countries agreed to launch new joint research projects.

The meeting of the Coordinating Committee was preceded by a personal meeting of JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov with CONAHCYT Director-General Maria Elena Alvarez-Buylla Roces. JINR Vice-Director Vladimir Kekelidze and former President of the Mexican Physical Society and Professor at the Institute of Physics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), a member of the JINR Scientific Council Ana Maria Cetto Kramis, cooperation coordinators Alejandro Ayala (UNAM) and Director of UC JINR Dmitry Kamanin, as well as Communications Coordinator and International Cooperation Director at CONAHCYT Horacio Chavira also took part in the meeting.

"We have agreed to identify several priority areas for the first joint projects. The first area includes nuclear methods in medicine, ecology and materials science. The second area includes information technologies and quantum technologies. The third area includes NICA, the heavy ion collider in Dubna that is already traditional, Mexico wishes to expand its participation in NICA. Of course, these three areas should be supported by a large, serious programme of academic exchanges, there should also be support for the involvement of young scientists, students, bachelors, masters, postgraduates in our joint project," JINR Director said at the bilateral meeting held at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

According to Grigory Trubnikov, Mexican physicists showed interest in cooperation soon after the start of construction of the NICA complex - a group headed by UNAM researcher Alejandro Ayala has been participating in it since 2018. Over five years, several dozens of joint publications with the Mexicans have been published in scientific journals, after which the largest university UNAM and research centres of other universities showed interest in expanding cooperation with Dubna - not only in the NICA collider, but also in other areas.

As Alejandro Ayala told RIA Novosti, in the course of research in the field of high energy physics, the Mexican party realized that the JINR laboratories have much greater potential - this is a whole range of opportunities for scientific cooperation. "The participants of the last meeting were not only specialists in nuclear physics, but also those from the field of medicine, biology and chemistry. And some of these colleagues are already very interested in establishing specific areas of cooperation, especially in applied areas," A.Ayala said.

Based on the materials of RIA Novosti
and the JINR Press Office