“Yesterday’s council decision reaffirms the strong condemnation of the Russian-assisted Russian invasion of Ukraine, while leaving the door open for continued scientific co-operation if conditions allow,” CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti said in a statement.
The scientific organization said the council “intends to suspend” CERN’s cooperation agreements with Belarus and Russia when they expire in June and December 2024, respectively. CERN said it would monitor developments in Ukraine and remains ready to take further steps. as justified.
Such agreements are usually concluded for five years and are usually renewed unless notified by one or both parties in advance.
CERN, the historical acronym for what is now the European Organization for Nuclear Research, struggled with its response to the invasion because nearly 7 percent of more than 18,000 researchers around the world were linked to Russian institutions before the war broke out.
The announcement comes as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, is in the process of launching its third cycle this summer.
The machine propelled particles through an underground, 27-kilometer (17-mile) ring of superconducting magnets in and around Geneva, generating science that could help unravel mysteries such as dark matter or the standard model of particle physics. Russian scientists have participated in the planning of numerous experiments.
