Geneva: Deprived of Russian staff, Cern risks failing

After the attack on Ukraine, CERN ended cooperation with Russian research institutes. Result: at the end of the month, Russian scientists will have to leave the nuclear research institute based in Geneva. Departures which will not be without consequences on research. “We can no longer operate a component of the detector, but this is not a big shortcoming,” Joachim Mnich, research director at CERN, told the German news agency dpa. Russian employees transferred their expertise to their colleagues as much as possible. “We hope that there will be no major loss in scientific production,” continues the official.

Beate Heinemann of the German research center Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron is less optimistic. “Russia has strong engineering expertise. The end of the collaboration will not make certain research impossible, but it will make things more difficult and there could be delays. Access to Russian components for the accelerator and experiments has also become problematic due to sanctions against Russia, reports the “Tages-Anzeiger”.