JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries:
budget, topical plan and recruitment

On 2 December, a session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the Governments of the JINR Member States was held in Varadero, Cuba, chaired by Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of Georgia at JINR Arsen Khvedelidze. The participants discussed the draft budget for 2026, digitalization at the Institute, participation in major infrastructure projects of JINR Member States and efforts to attract highly qualified specialists. Following the meeting, six new members of the JINR Scientific Council were elected.

Finance Committee

On 1 December, a meeting of the Finance Committee was held, at which JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov presented a report on the Institute's activities. Head of the Budget and Economic Policy Department Nikolay Kalinin presented information on the draft JINR budget for 2026 and the indicative contributions of JINR Member States for 2027-2029, as well as the draft financial rules and regulations for adjusting the Institute's budget. Chairman of the Working Group on Financial Issues at JINR Yerzhan Mukhamedzhanov reported on the results of the June meeting of the Working Group under the Chairman of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries. The results of the Institute's audit for 2024 were also presented.

Grigory Trubnikov	Nikolay Kalinin	Yerzhan Mukhamedzhanov

Head of the Department of Digital Services Development Mikhail Vasiliev spoke about the digitalization of the Institute's administrative and scientific activities. He emphasized that the number of users of the JINR Digital Ecosystem increases every year, largely due to the addition of new services. There are now over 60 of them on this platform. In 2026, the Institute will pass on a new accounting automation programme. The transition of JINR's procurement processes to the new information system will be completed within a year.

Committee of Plenipotentiaries

On 2 December, the session of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries began with a moment of silence in memory of the Institute's scientists, the Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vice-Director Sergey Dmitriev and Scientific Leader of the Laboratory of Radiation Biology Evgeny Krasavin.

JINR Director RAS Academician Grigory Trubnikov delivered an overview of the Institute's activities. He presented a detailed analysis of the implementation of the current Seven-Year Plan for JINR's development and summarized preliminary results for the period from 2021 to 2025, highlighting the increasing pace of development in all key areas.

In his speech, Grigory Trubnikov emphasized JINR's high competitiveness in the global scientific arena. The Institute maintains its second-largest staff among international intergovernmental scientific organizations and sixth-largest budget among all organizations implementing research in the natural sciences. Over the past five years, JINR scientists have published over 6,000 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Divisions

JINR Director focused on the activities of the seven laboratories of the Joint Institute and their major achievements in recent years in his report.

Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics: the main engineering infrastructure for the NICA Accelerator Complex has been completed and the final tests and preparatory work are underway for the first run with heavy ion beams at the collider.

Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions: 250 superheavy element production events have been registered, work is underway to develop the infrastructure of the DRIBs-III complex and preparations are underway for the synthesis of elements 119 and 120.

Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems: construction and expansion of the Baikal-GVD Neutrino Telescope is underway and the Committee of Plenipotentiaries has supported the initiative to establish a separate JINR division on Lake Baikal.

Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics: Over the past five years, the Laboratory has supported publishing over 1,600 scientific articles and has organized about 50 major scientific conferences, schools and workshops.

Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics: A major upgrade of the IBR-2 research reactor has been successfully completed, attracting 156 new users from 23 countries in 2025.

Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies: As a result of the upgrade of the JINR Interlaboratory Computing Complex, the Govorun supercomputer's storage capacity has reached 10.6 PB and the Tier-1 centre is still a leader in processing data for the CMS experiment at CERN.

Laboratory of Radiation Biology: Significant results have been obtained in the fields of oncology research and radiopharmaceuticals and the establishment of the Interlaboratory Council on Biophysical Research has been approved.

Education and Science

JINR Directorate highlights the increasing demand from Member States for international student internships and programmes to train highly qualified personnel. The JINR University Centre currently organizes dozens of scientific and educational events and initiatives annually in Member States.

Focus was on the work of the Moscow State University branch in Dubna, where 92 students currently study master's programmes in physics, as well as applied mathematics and computer science. A new educational programme in radiation biology and radiochemistry is scheduled to launch in 2026.

Furthermore, the successful experience of JINR's competition to support international innovative projects was emphasized. "This initiative has great potential and is of particular interest to young scientists from the Institute's Member States," Grigory Trubnikov highlighted.

Cooperation

Sergey Nedelko

According to JINR Director, the Institute's key objective as an international intergovernmental scientific organization is to develop cooperation and to attract new countries and partners to joint work. Over the past five years, JINR Directorate has participated in hundreds of high-level meetings, from directors of major research centres to government representatives and presidents. These events have contributed to the establishment of a productive dialogue with the international scientific community. Grigory Trubnikov discussed it in more detail in the second part of his report.

Results of the CP session

The results of the 138th session of the JINR Scientific Council and the structure of the Topical Plan for JINR Research and International Cooperation were presented in the report of JINR Chief Scientific Secretary Sergey Nedelko. The members of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries endorsed the recommendations of the Scientific Council session and approved the Topical Plan for JINR Research and International Cooperation (TP-2026). The plan will include 36 topics, within which 73 research projects are scheduled.

Andrey Omelchuk

The JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries approved the JINR draft budget for 2026, the indicative contributions of Member States for 2027-2029, as well as JINR's financial rules and budget adjustment regulations. The decision was made following a report by Nikolay Kalinin and a report by Chairman of the Finance Committee and Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Andrey Omelchuk that reported on the results of the Finance Committee meeting on 1 December, 2025.

"Russia highly values the role of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research as a key international platform for scientific dialogue. This year, the historic launch of the first heavy-ion beam run at the NICA Accelerator Complex is particularly noteworthy. This event is the culmination of many years of scientific efforts and an important milestone in the Institute's development ahead of its 70th anniversary. Along with its outstanding scientific achievements, JINR's educational and outreach mission is also noteworthy. Active engagement with schoolchildren, students and young scientists significantly contributes to increasing interest in science and training highly qualified personnel. This comprehensive approach is a powerful magnet for young people from Russia and abroad, drawing them into the scientific field," Andrey Omelchuk emphasized.

Alexander Verkheev

Head of the Human Resources and Records Management Department Alexander Verkheev reported on JINR's HR policy and the tools used to attract highly qualified employees.

This year, for the first time since 2021, the number of JINR employees has increased. Each year, 35-40 graduates from universities in Member States are employed at JINR and 70-80 senior students work part-time at the Institute annually. An additional 30-40 senior students are expected in the next year or two due to the expansion of training programmes at the Moscow State University branch in Dubna.

JINR currently employs 16 people from around the world under the Postdoc and Fellowship programmes; four scientists whose contracts under these programmes have expired have transferred to the Joint Institute for scientific research. 180 people collaborate with the Institute as associate staff, mostly, participants in JINR collaborations.

A significant source of staff replenishment consists of employees sent by plenipotentiary representatives of their countries; in 2025, 460 such employees were hired, the largest number coming from Kazakhstan and Vietnam. The share of research staff from Member States currently accounts for about a quarter of all JINR scientists. Alexander Verkheev emphasized that JINR Directorate actively expands and renovates the Institute's housing stock to accommodate out-of-town staff.

On the development of the Institute's infrastructure and its Member States

The Committee of Plenipotentiaries discussed the Institute's development in the medium and long term, over the next 5 and 25 years. It was stated that JINR Member States highly value the development of the scientific infrastructure and projects implemented both within the Institute and in Member States. Today, the Joint Institute boasts world-leading facilities in their class, including the Superheavy Element Factory, the Baikal Neutrino Telescope, the NICA Accelerator Complex, as well as facilities for applied research. Commissioning of the MSC-230 Medical Proton Cyclotron at the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems and the DC-140 Accelerator for applied research at the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions is scheduled for next year. LRB's experimental capabilities expand fast. MLIT has increased its data processing capacity, has expanded its distributed cloud computing infrastructure and has improved its data storage.

The plenipotentiary representatives of the Governments of JINR Member States welcomed the intentions of JINR Directorate to build joint facilities and laboratories with Member States: the establishment of a Joint Laboratory of Accelerator Technologies in Vietnam and the construction of a new spectrometer at the WWR-K reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics (Kazakhstan). The Committee supported the initiative of JINR Directorate to implement projects to establish a scientific and clinical centre for proton therapy and an International Science and High Technology Park in Dubna. Grigory Trubnikov emphasized that this is a highly ambitious project involving all JINR Member States, with a research university at its core. The Park will become an organization with international status, where scientific research will be implemented, innovative developments will be carried out and an educational component will be integrated. The International Science and Technology Park could be equipped with such a large research infrastructure as the Proton Therapy Centre, which JINR currently develops together with Rosatom and the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia.

Renewal of JINR Scientific Council membership

Alejandro Ayala (UNAM, Mexico), Eduard Boos (MSU, Russia), Satoshi Mihara (KEK, Japan), Ivan Logashenko (INP SB RAS, Russia), Mahmoud Sakr (Egypt) and Khuyagbaatar Jadambaa (Mongolia) were elected as new members of the JINR Scientific Council.

The CP session concluded with a general discussion and the signing of the protocol. The next session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries will be held on 25 March, 2026, in Dubna. A meeting of the JINR Finance Committee will be held on 24 March.

JINR Press Office