2021 Volume 4 Issue 2 (Published 30 June 2021)

Dear colleagues,  

Sadly, we have to open this editorial column with covid news again. The third wave has reached us, taking the form of the highly contagious "Indian" strain. The number of infected people is increasing again, and the almost left-in-the-past restrictions are coming back. It's a shame to go back to isolation and virtual meetings while bemoaning that no one had told us that things would get worse and we had to get vaccinated the sooner the better and with as big a reach as possible. Alas, the spirit of complacency has won over the new and effective vaccines and the miracles of their quick manufacture. This is highly reminiscent of the pains that regular inventors go through. It's not enough to create something or even to develop a technology and organize manufacture—you need to sell it as well. This is exactly where the authorities have lapsed. They concentrated on promoting the vaccine abroad, being confident that our own citizens would definitely get vaccinated, especially since it's free for them. It turned out that the vaccination marketing strategy for the internal market required a deeper professional involvement, which, unfortunately, didn't happen. However, the ice has begun to break at last, and, next to the lines of ambulances, lines are forming to vaccination spots now.

It is all the more exciting for it that we were finally able to hold our once-postponed INEOS OPEN CUP during the May breather of 2021. Back then, we believed that the pandemic was behind us. The contest was held with the spirit of great enthusiasm, as we discovered new names and watched our young veterans' shine. The panel of judges had a great number of works to choose from, and the winners can be found on our website now. This time around, both our young and adult panels were chaired by the full members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vadim Yu. Kukushkin and Oleg G. Sinyashin, respectively; the panels themselves included the representatives from every region of our country.

The Grand Prix of the main contest has been awarded to the young researcher V. A. Larionov for his work on the new original methods for asymmetrical synthesis of hardly accessible nonproteinogenic α-amino acids using Belokon's chiral dehydroalanine nickel complex. It's incredibly important that this work that represents both the author and his famous teachers won in an open competition. This had immediately brought on the question about the very split of the contest into "young" and "adult" categories. Among the four winners, the youth and adults were represented equally. Thus, the long-debated topic has exhausted itself. The division will not be carried onward into future contests. Even more so, the winner of the young scientists' session, V. F. Otvagin, was very close to the winner of the main contest both in spirit and complexity of organic synthesis and in the general level of his work.

As usual, our neighbors from ZIOC RAS presented strong works. The holder of the L'Oreal fellowship V. A. Vil impressed in our contest as well, having presented a conceptually new approach to the processes of oxidative coupling with the use of formerly unavailable acyl peroxides. The "adult" contestants went the more traditional route. A. S. Gazizov from the Arbuzov Institute of Organic and Physical Chemistry in Kazan presented a huge variety of phosphorus-containing heterocycles that have broad prospects for application in fine organic synthesis.

At long last, we saw among the winners a prominent representative of Nesmeyanov's organometallic school—D. N. Zarubin with the work on heterogeneous catalysts based on titanium imides. Another representative from INEOS RAS, M. V. Andreev, received the people's choice award. Considering the qualification of our audience, this prize is equally valuable. This precedent is very important for the organizers as it demonstrates clearly that the expertise of the audience is in play, and that is a very important informal part of our contest. Another part of our contest, the Grant Prix deal, is also operational now. Currently, the first contract is being signed. That means that, apart from giving out awards, our contest performs another vital function—it serves as a talent showcase. The organizing committee issued an official invitation to Kirill V. Zaitsev to sign a contract with one of the laboratories of INEOS RAS to organize a new research group based on the results of his research for INEOS RAS.

These were the new trends in our contest that is rapidly coming of age. It will continue to change and will, most likely, adopt this year's mode of having one spring and one autumn session per year. In May we held the contest of 2020 that was postponed due to the pandemic, and in November we will hold the contest of 2021. We will adopt this structure for the upcoming years. The entire hidden potential of our contest has finally found its realization in the shape of specific procedures, and now we only have to execute and replicate them in our everyday lives.

We cannot mention the increased activity of the doctor's degree candidates. Two defenses that were held since the beginning of the year signify a good working speed. Our congratulations to S. A. Kuklin, D. V. Muratov, and I. A. Godovikov on these important achievements in their scientific careers!

Needless to say, the new Dr. of Science holders and all winners of our contest will receive engraved invitations to publish highlights on their theses and winning works on the pages of INEOS OPEN. As usual, it will increase the level of interest in the Journal and its recognizability throughout our entire country. It will serve us well since we are continuing to rise in the relevant indices and ratings. Recently, we have taken another high point. The Russian Science Citation Index expert council had reviewed our application to be included in the list of journals indexed by RSCI and, after some careful analysis, had decided in our favor. This is a great sign for this new season, more high points ahead! With this, we are ready to welcome this disquieting summer…

Sincerely yours, Editor-in-Chief Prof., Full Member of RAS Aziz M. Muzafarov

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