Fr om 19 to 22 March MEPhI has held the IV international youth scientific school-conference “Modern problems of physics and technologies”, organized by the MEPhI, LPI RAS and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

For the fourth time youth scientific forum collected young researchers to discuss urgent problems of modern fundamental and applied physics, nuclear and physical technologies. The format of the conference provided participants an opportunity to present their scientific works, to share research results, and most importantly – to listen to reports of their Russian and foreign colleagues in the most modern and relevant scientific issues. About 300 people – students, graduates, and employees of research centers and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, participated in the conference; 37 universities sent its delegates to the forum. A wide range of educational institutions participating in the scientific school, a large number of students coming not only from Russian cities, but also from Belarus and Vietnam, reaffirmed undoubted interest of the youth scientific community in this event.

This positive trend was also noted by the President of the MEPhI B.N. Onykiy, who opened the conference. “It is sometimes said that today very few people want to practice physics, especially theoretical one, but I'm glad that it's not, because it is you who will bring Russian science to a new level”, he said. B.N. Onykiy encouraged undergraduate and postgraduate students to take a unique opportunity to listen to leading scientists in the framework of the Youth scientific school. According to the President of the MEPhI, scientific school is the place wh ere scientific ideas of educational universities and academic institutes incorporate with each other, which joint discussion will undoubtedly be of benefit to future researchers.

Then leading scientists made presentations on advanced areas of physics, technology and engineering, presented current state and prospects of science development in these areas. In the second part of the school-conference there were presentations of young participants in oral and poster sections in seven research areas: theoretical physics and space and astrophysics; nuclear physics and technology; solid state physics and nanotechnology; laser physics, optics and plasma physics; materials science and technology of production processes; cybernetics and automatics; biomedical physics and technology.

Students, postgraduates and young scientists presented their work, made in research centers in Russia and abroad. All reports aroused great interest of participants, who asked lots of questions; there was an active discussion of mentioned issues.

According to the results of the conference the best reports were chosen in the nominations: “Best oral presentation in Russian”, “Best oral presentation in English”, “Best poster presentation”. In addition, this year two new categories were introduced – “Breakthrough” and “The most original report”. The winners received diplomas; in addition several reports were recommended for publication in the journal “Bulletin of the Lebedev Physics Institute”, which is included in the Web of Science.

Event organizers also prepared a varied programme for the participants. It included visits to laboratories and research centers of the University, participation in the Open Day for applicants to master’s degree course of MEPhI, and Moscow sightseeing tour.