Russia. CERN is getting rid of scientists

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (in French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire – CERN) will have to leave the scientists and engineers working there with ties to Russian institutions by November 30. This is the result of the end (after the invasion Russia on Ukraine in 2022) of cooperation between the center located near Geneva and the Russian Federation, the “Nature” magazine reported.

CERN, one of the most important laboratories for elementary particle research, brings together 24 countries (including Poland). United States, Japan and Russia have observer status, and Ukraine and several other countries – associate members.

When Russia militarily attacked Ukraine in 2022, the facility where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operates employed about a thousand Russians. Right after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, CERN decided to suspend Russia from observer rights and not to extend the agreements (after their expiration) with the Russian Federation and Belarus.

The CERN-Belarus cooperation agreement ended in June this year (work in Switzerland (approx. 20 researchers lost at that time), the one with Russia ends on November 30. From December 1, scientists associated with Russian institutions will no longer have access to CERN and will lose their French or Swiss residence permits.

Some researchers from the Russian Federation will be able to stay in Switzerland, however, and many will probably take advantage of this opportunity. All they have to do is move to research facilities outside their homeland. According to CERN spokesman Arnaud Marsollier, quoted by Nature, almost 100 people working at the Geneva-based facility have done so in the past two years.

“If you really wanted to stay and could prove that your scientific work had value, there were many opportunities to do so in the last two years,” an anonymous Russian physicist working on experiments at the LHC told Nature.

The decision to expel Russian scientists from Switzerland means that CERN will not only lose several hundred employees, but also money. According to “Nature”, agencies from the Russian Federation provided about 4.5% of the total budget of the LHC experiments (now these costs are covered by other countries). From the funds for the planned modernization of the Large Hadron Collider by 2029, which were to be partially provided by Russia, CERN will lose CHF 40 million (about PLN 180 million).

The planned expulsion of hundreds of Russian scientists and engineers does not mean a complete severance of CERN's contacts with the Russian Federation. The European particle physics laboratory will continue to cooperate with Russian researchers under a separate agreement with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), 80 percent financed by the Russian state. Currently, about 270 scientists from this international center in Dubna near Moscow, established in 1956 and conducting, among other things, projects “with military applications,” still work at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The decision to maintain cooperation with JINR – and therefore with the Russian Federation – divided the scientific community. It was criticized by, among others, Ukrainian physicist Boris Grinev, director of the Institute of Scintillation Materials in Kharkiv, who called it a “big mistake” in the pages of “Nature”. Other researchers quoted by the magazine noted, however, that CERN proved to be more radical in terms of contacts with Russia than other European scientific institutions. For example, in the France In the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), Russia continues to have the status of a member state.

“The CERN Convention is very clear – we conduct peaceful basic research,” recalled spokesman Marsollier. CERN was founded on the outskirts of Geneva, on the border between Switzerland and France, in 1954 as a center for peaceful scientific cooperation in Europe, which was divided after World War II. As stated on the center's website, CERN currently employs about 16,000 people, including over 12,000 scientists from 82 countries working on various experiments.