In reaction to the attempted Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the 24 member countries of CERN decided in December 2023 to end cooperation with Russia and its Belarusian ally.
This measure comes into force on November 30 for Moscow and has already been in force since June 27 for Minsk. The two countries were linked to CERN by five-year agreements, and the organization decided to terminate them when they expired.
Currently, fewer than 350 scientists are attached to a Russian institute affected by this decision, and most do not live in Geneva, CERN told Keystone-ATS. Relations with Russian scientists attached to CERN within the framework of other agreements with non-Russian institutions will be continued.
The lack of scientists from institutes in Russia will be felt, added Arnaud Marsollier, CERN spokesperson. But the organization will be able to compensate for it. Russia has in fact never been a member country, but has benefited from special status as an observer state. She therefore did not contribute to the annual budget nor did she have the right to make decisions.
As for the number of scientists from Belarus, it has always been low. Around fifteen Belarusian researchers were thus excluded at the end of June.
With around 3,000 employees and an annual budget (2023) of 1.3 billion francs, CERN is the largest research center in the world in the field of particle physics. Around 17,000 guest scientists from 110 nations are working on experiments, most of them in laboratories at other institutes and in other countries.
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