Vladimir Korenkov shared the experience of cooperation between MLIT JINR and Dubna University in the area of personnel training On 13 March, Dubna State University hosted a round table entitled “Innovative Practices in Education: Experience of the University Community”, where representatives of JINR and a number of leading Russian universities discussed the accumulated experience, approaches and development of educational processes in training highly qualified specialists in various fields. Vladimir Korenkov, Scientific Leader of the JINR Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies, took part in the event. Acting Vice-Rector for Educational and Methodological Work Olga Anisimova welcomed the participants on behalf of Acting Rector of Dubna University Andrey Denikin. She spoke about the University’s current status, its structure, educational programs and development prospects, in particular, about the Dubna University campus project, i.e., the International Science and Technology Park, planned for implementation in the area of the left-bank site of the Dubna Special Economic Zone. In his report, Vladimir Korenkov presented the experience of organizing high-level IT education and training personnel for MLIT JINR using the example of cooperation with Dubna University, where he holds the position of Head of the Department of Distributed Information and Computing Systems of the Institute of System Analysis and Management (ISAM). As Vladimir Korenkov pointed out, the problems of training specialists to implement the Laboratory’s tasks are primarily due to the complexity of the scientific tasks to be solved, which often relate to megascience projects. IT technologies used to solve business or production tasks, for which educational programs are elaborated at universities, are not sufficient in this area. The processing of experimental data from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN or at the NICA collider in Dubna, which is being prepared for launch, has very high requirements for accuracy, transfer rate, and volumes of stored information, as well as implies the sophisticated organization of distributed computing. At the same time, the centers that participate in data processing and analysis have various architectures, namely, grid sites, supercomputers, computing clusters, cloud infrastructure, etc. To solve such tasks, integrating methods and high-level software, which is not employed anywhere except in this specific scientific environment, are needed. For this reason, MLIT JINR creates unique mathematical models, data processing methods and develops its own technologies and systems. “We are facing the urgent task of training specialists capable of working in our scientific environment. At the same time, it is obvious that the mass training of such personnel is inappropriate and economically unprofitable. In fact, we are talking about training a small number of narrowly qualified specialists, and this is a real challenge. Educational cooperation between JINR and universities is especially significant here, and first of all, with Dubna University, since our goal is to cultivate specialists starting from the student bench,” the speaker highlighted. This task is being solved, among other things, through the broad involvement of JINR staff members in the educational process, in particular, 33 specialists from the Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies teach at Dubna University. Vladimir Korenkov also noted that MLIT JINR had built an educational infrastructure that provides for tutorials, master classes and courses on parallel programming technologies. The training is conducted on the basis of the HybriLIT heterogeneous platform, where the educational and testing polygon has been deployed, allowing students to master work on advanced computing architectures, including the “Govorun” supercomputer. With the support of MLIT JINR, the basic Department of Distributed Information and Computing Systems was established at Dubna University. The bachelor’s program “Software Engineering” and master’s programs “Mathematical Modeling and Data Analysis”, “Digital Platforms and Big Data Analytics” are implemented. In addition, since 2019, the International School “Data Science” has been developing at the University under the patronage of JINR, it focuses on training IT specialists for the development of computing for megascience projects, Big Data analytics, digital economy and other promising directions. MLIT holds seminars and pre-graduation internships for students, which enables the Laboratory to hire both master’s students after defending their theses and young specialists after completing their postgraduate studies. Support for talented students is provided, and JINR scholarships are available for them. The Laboratory conducts the youth School of Information Technologies twice a year, which has demonstrated high efficiency, namely, for the two years of this series of Schools, 18 of its participants have become JINR staff members. At the same time, within major international conferences and meetings, MLIT organizes lectures, practical classes, and IT schools of various levels for young people, so that eminent scientists can not only share their experience with them, but also draw attention to promising young specialists. “We believe that in this way we not only work to achieve our personnel objectives, but also inspire young people to come to science, spark their interest,” Vladimir Korenkov emphasized. JINR Director’s Special Representative for Educational Policy Samvel Harutyunyan spoke about his vision of the development of Dubna University. He highlighted a number of advantages that the University can gain from acquiring the status of a research university, i.e., a structure that integrates education, science, and innovation. Samvel Harutyunyan underlined the need to create permanent specialized councils and a JINR representative office at the University, as well as to actively involve the JINR Member States’ universities in the organization of the educational process. ISAM Scientific Leader at Dubna University Evgenia Cheremisina presented the concept of training IT specialists in end-to-end digital technologies. The main challenge here, according to the speaker, is the completeness of the education of IT specialists. As key elements of the development of the ISAM curriculum, Evgenia Cheremisina emphasized the updating of educational programs in the field of digital economy, the strengthening of interdisciplinarity, the expansion of international cooperation, and the active implementation of artificial intelligence technologies. Alexander Degtyarev, Professor of the Department of Computer Modeling and Multiprocessor Systems at St. Petersburg State University, spoke about the mathematical component in the new educational program entitled “Big Data and Distributed Digital Platform”. As the speaker pointed out, MLIT JINR and personally Vladimir Korenkov, who is also the chairman of the State Attestation Commission for the defense of master’s theses at SPbSU, played an important role in the elaboration of the program. Representatives of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI Alexey Artamonov, Head of the Department of Competitive Systems Analysis, and Andrey Cherkassky, Senior Lecturer of the same department, delivered a talk on the search and processing of scientific information in applied research. Sergey Solodov, Associate Professor of the Department of Automated Control Systems (ACS), Director of the Institute of Computer Science at MISIS, spoke about the participation of the University of Science and Technology MISIS in the experiment on the transition to a new educational system. His colleague Igor Temkin, Head of the Department of ACS MISIS, presented a report on project activities of students in the interests of industrial partners. A modern international campus for specialists in the field of power engineering was the topic of the talk by Alexander Tarasov, Vice-Rector for International Relations at the National Research University MPEI. Konstantin Belyakov, Acting Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation at Stroganov Russian State University of Design and Applied Arts, spoke about the use of AI technologies for proctoring in education. Mikhail Belov, ISAM Associate Professor, Head of the ISAM Center for Cloud Computing and Supercomputer Maintenance at Dubna University, gave a talk on a virtual computer laboratory based on the principles of self-organization as a foundation for innovative IT education. The second day of the event was devoted to acquaintance with the JINR scientific infrastructure, which started at the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics. The guests visited the accelerator complex of the NICA megascience project, its experimental physical facilities, and the superconducting magnet factory. The participants of the round table got acquainted with the accelerator complex of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, including the Superheavy Element Factory. The guests were greatly impressed by the meeting with the legend of world physics, FLNR Scientific Leader Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian and by the exhibition of reproduced paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which he curates. At the Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies, the participants of the event visited the JINR Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex and got acquainted with the “Govorun” supercomputer.
