Soviet Experience of Science Diplomacy: Establishment of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) is an international intergovernmental organization representing a unique research center, whose activities encompass the broadest spectrum of nuclear science. The formation and development of JINR are covered in dozens, if not hundreds, of books and articles published over the institute’s 70-year history. However, the process of its creation as part of the development of Soviet science diplomacy has not yet been the subject of separate scientific studies. Meanwhile, analyzing the establishment of JINR through the lens of the concept of ‘science diplomacy’ appears to be an exceptionally relevant research task — on the one hand, due to the growing importance of this concept in instrumentalizing international scientific and technical cooperation, and on the other, due to the special role of this international organization in the history of the USSR and Russia. In this context, this article attempts to deconstruct the phenomenon under study along three vectors of the most common taxonomy of science diplomacy in the academic literature: ‘science in diplomacy,’ ‘diplomacy for science,’ and ‘science for diplomacy.’ The author notes that from the perspective of the development of Soviet science diplomacy, the JINR case represented a break with the previously established paradigm of integrating into the existing system of international scientific and technical relations and a move into a ‘zone of accelerated development’: for the first time, the country was creating a new, unique international platform on its territory. From the perspective of the ‘science diplomacy’ concept, the uniqueness of JINR lies in the process of radical internationalization of previously secret ‘mega science’ class facilities and the de facto formation of an international scientific program based on an existing national large-scale research infrastructure. In this respect, JINR became a non-standard, asymmetric, alternative response to the classical approach to international scientific organization, implemented, for example, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This experience and the feasibility of such large-scale tasks were subsequently used in the creation of other specialized international organizations with a leading role of the USSR, forming a distinct, Soviet model of science diplomacy.