CERN

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 20 Member States.

CERN’s mission

Research, technology, collaboration, education

The convention that established CERN in 1954 clearly laid down the main missions for the Organization.

Primarily, the Convention states;

“The Organization shall provide for collaboration among European States in nuclear research of a pure scientific and fundamental character (...). The Organization shall have no concern with work for military requirements and the results of its experimental and theoretical work shall be published or otherwise made generally available”.

Today it is the contents of the nucleus – the basic building blocks of the Universe – that provide the key to unlock the frontier of fundamental research, but CERN’s main mission remains essentially the same.

The Convention also states that CERN shall organize and sponsor international co-operation in research, promoting contacts between scientists and interchange with other laboratories and institutes. This includes dissemination of information, and the provision of advanced training for research workers, which continue to be reflected in the current programmes for technology transfer and education and training at many levels.

* Research: Seeking and finding answers to questions about the Universe

* Technology: Advancing the frontiers of technology

* Collaborating: Bringing nations together through science

* Education: Training the scientists of tomorrow

Basic science in a competitive world

by Robert Aymar (former Director General of CERN)

We are constantly being told that we live in a competitive world in which innovation is the main driver towards growth and prosperity. What is the place in such a world for fundamental science, whose short-term contribution to society is knowledge without any immediate application? Is it an unnecessary luxury? Should the world be deploying its resources in pursuit of more pressing needs: public health, clean energy, safe water? Of course it should, and I believe that investment in fundamental science serves these goals. It is a long-term investment, laying the foundations for future innovation and prosperity.

History teaches us that big jumps in human innovation come about mainly as a basic result of pure curiosity. Innovation is key to meeting many of today’s development challenges, and the primary force for innovation is fundamental research. Without it, there would be no science to apply. Faraday's experiments on electricity, for example, were driven by curiosity but eventually brought us electric light. No amount of R&D on the candle could ever have done that. Electric light came from innovation driven by fundamental science.

The long-term role of fundamental science is well understood by the European Investment Bank, the financial arm of the European Union. In 2003, the EIB gave a strong endorsement of fundamental science when it lent €300 million to CERN to help finance the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Why should the EIB consider the world’s largest fundamental physics project to be a worthy investment? I believe the reason is that fundamental science paves the way to future innovation.

Fundamental research has the power to make people dream, and it attracts the innovators of the future into science. Without the excitement provided by research and discovery at the frontiers of knowledge, the pool of scientists would undoubtedly be smaller.

The scientists who work on the LHC are driven by a desire to learn about the Universe, but that has not stopped them from developing particle acceleration and detection techniques that have found applications in medicine, for example. Scientists at CERN invented the World Wide Web, which has revolutionized the way we share information and do business. Today the LHC community worldwide is working on computing grids, the next frontier in information technology, which already have applications in fields such as Earth observation, climate prediction, petroleum exploration, and drug discovery.

LHC experiments will observe particle collisions at the rate of up to 600 million per second. This equates to about one petabyte per second, roughly the equivalent of about 150 000 DVD movies. Clearly, storing such quantities would be impossible, so we have to develop very clever electronics to sift out the interesting data. Even after draconian data reduction, however, we will be storing around 15 petabytes per year. Organizing access to this data for thousands of scientists from around the world is the reason particle physics is at the forefront of grid computing, which will make access to computing resources as simple as tapping into the electricity grid by plugging in an electric light.

Fundamental science has a vital role to play in today’s competitive world. It is fundamental science that lays the long-term foundations for innovation and prosperity. Abdus Salam, the Nobel prize-winning physicist from Pakistan, said, "In the final analysis, creation, mastery, and utilization of modern science and technology [are] basically what distinguishes the South from North. On science and technology depend the standards of living of a nation." This is the challenge for fundamental science in today’s world of competition. Fundamental science has a vital role to play in the process of innovation. In today’s competitive world, it is as important as it has ever been.

CERN's structure

The CERN Council is the highest authority of the Organization and has responsibility for all-important decisions. It controls CERN’s activities in scientific, technical and administrative matters. The Council approves programmes of activity, adopts the budgets and reviews expenditure.

The Council is assisted by the Scientific Policy Committee and the Finance Committee.