Institute day by day

Dubna and JINR - a union of science, culture, education

On 18 March, a meeting of the JINR Science and Technology Council was held. Chair of the Council Elena Kolganova thanked everyone having sent proposals for the STC work plan this year and emphasized that this meeting was organized taking into account such wishes. The agenda included three issues: information from Directorate, prospects for the development of Dubna, as well as the Historical Archive and the new JINR Exhibition Centre.

JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov highlighted that the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Institute is not only a solemn ceremony, awarding, performances, souvenirs. The best gift for Foundation Day consists of the results of the Institute that it shares with the whole world.

Among the key news is the launch of the NICA Collider. On the night of 12 February, the circulation of colliding beams with good intensity was registered in both rings. The beam paths are aligned at the meeting points. In the fourth quarter of this year, MPD will start operating at one of these points and registration of the first events in the detector will start. The whole Institute has gone to this event for 10 years. The session has been going on for over a year. As soon as the work on the collider had been completed, the accumulation of statistics on the BM@N experiment began. Almost two billion events have already been registered. It shows good functionality of the detector system and the accelerator complex. Currently, work is underway on the ARIADNA applied research project.

In a cruise mode, IBR-2 operates at a power of 1.5 MW. Eight sessions are scheduled this year and this is a very essential result, since the international user community on the reactor has been developing for many years, representatives of many countries participate in it. And for the next year or two, while NICA is currently completed, the reactor will serve as a source of new employees and joint projects.

At MLIT, colleagues have reached a good development rate, the power of the Govorun supercomputer has increased several times and the volume of data storage has increased. All collaborations of the NICA Megascience Project, radiobiologists, bioinformatics, our partners from CERN reliably work at MLIT facilities.

Another expedition to Lake Baikal is successfully underway. About 600 new optical modules have been added so far. The size of the telescope is confidently approaching 1 km3. Serbian scientists joined the collaboration. Another key result of the expedition is that six new garlands with prototypes of modules are currently installed with Chinese colleagues that will be used for the construction of a 30-kilometer neutrino telescope - a new collaboration between JINR, China and other countries.

The start of experiments on the synthesis of element 119 starts in mid-May. Several institutes are involved in this project. A Berkeley target will be obtained from Rosatom's partners and JINR will provide all the accelerator infrastructure and beams of accelerated titanium.

Further, Grigory Trubnikov spoke about the work of the 139th session of the Scientific Council, the opening of the monument to Academician A.M. Baldin and the awarding of the OGANESSON Prize. A programme was presented to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Institute in Dubna, in different countries, a major International Conference "Fundamental properties of matter" was announced that will be held on 22-27 February, 2027 and will symbolically complete the anniversary events. The JINR Publishing Department was especially highlighted, whose employees had to perform a huge amount of work on the production of magazines, brochures, books, calendars. Words of gratitude were also addressed to the authors of the JINR scientific journal Natural Science Review. And the most unexpected was the gift from the breeders of the Nikitsky Botanical Garden - the garden rose "NICA" and the chrysanthemum "Dubna".

Head of Dubna city district Maxim Tikhomirov spoke about the work done and plans for the development of the city for 2026-2028. Dubna, as you know, is also Jubilee this year and the main results were related to filling the budget, communal and social infrastructure. In particular, over the previous five years, the city's budget has increased several times and financial support for the Moscow Region Government has increased. Of the fundamental achievements, the change of boilers in boiler houses, the repair of heating networks, the reconstruction of the cold-water supply system and the repair of roads were emphasized. Several squares and parks have been landscaped, Tsentralnaya Street, new lighting has been installed and the construction of a bike path is underway. Several cultural and sports projects have been implemented in the city. The plans include the construction of treatment facilities, a new children's clinic, a protective dam on the left bank, new residential buildings and the renovation of the pier.

The speech, as expected, caused many questions that were asked by D.V. Peshekhonov, S.N. Nedelko, D.V. Kamanin, E.V. Lychagin, A.V. Karpov, W. Badawi, O. Culicov. JINR employees were interested in repairing the roof and roads, railway communication, preparing for floods, repairing the tunnel, others.

The speech of the Deputy Chief Scientific Secretary Alexey Zhemchugov was dedicated to the Historical Archive and the new JINR Exhibition Centre. The JINR Historical Archive is today handled by four employees. In fact, this is a department that studies the history of science and technology, anthropology, cultural studies, sociology. Documents of historical value are accepted and stored here, their inventory, attribution, legal registration, digitization are carried out. In 2025, 17 funds were established, including personal archives of I. M. Frank, G. N. Flerov, letters of M. G. Meshcheryakov.

One of the sources of replenishment is the so-called "Oral history". This is an interview, full or partial transcript, preparation of a table of contents and commentary on the transcript, registration of consent to the audio recording, coordination of the transcript. Thus, a full-fledged archival link is obtained that can be used in scientific papers. Over the past year, more than 50 audio files of conversations have been recorded with more than 30 JINR employees and veterans, as well as with their family members. Total duration of records exceeds 120 hours. In cooperation with the ISAM of Dubna University, a digital archive of electronic copies, handwritten and typewritten texts, photo and video materials is currently created.

International cooperation is carried out with specialists from several countries. Reports and lectures of the archive staff have been given at various conferences.

The greatest interest and subsequent discussions were caused by the project of a new Exhibition Centre that will be located in the building on the 14 Sovetskaya Street. The work is carried out in two basic areas: the reconstruction of the room and the creation of the exposition.

The building will have several halls dedicated to the history of JINR, basic facilities, flagship projects. At the moment, a book of scripts has been created, in which creative ideas are collected, there are already 700 sheets in it and the help of all interested people will be required to present our Institute in the most interesting, attractive, but at the same time enlightening way. A children's centre in the premises of the JINR Museum of History of Science and Technology will be established.

At the end of the report, A. I. Malakhov, D. V. Kamanin, D. V. Peshekhonov, S. N. Nedelko, A. I. Frank and others made questions and proposals.

Galina MYALKOVSKAYA