An important day for European science

Today is an important day for the future of European science. It is the day on which CERN’s relationship with the European Union reaches maturity. Ever since the early 1950s, CERN and the European project have grown together. CERN was a child of the European movement: the first discussions at Denis de Rougemont’s European Cultural Conference in Lausanne in 1949 led directly to the foundation of CERN in 1954. More recently, the European Union has become an Observer at the CERN Council, links between CERN and the EU have strengthened as Europe has pursued the goal of creating a European Research Area, and CERN has benefited from European support for projects as varied as Grid computing and future accelerator R&D, not forgetting, of course, the numerous Marie Curie fellows whose careers have received a boost thanks to European funds.

Today, that collaboration goes one step further with the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between CERN and the European Commission. Through this MoU, the Commission recognizes the CERN Council as Europe’s sole body for defining strategy in particle physics. That is a very significant step for European science, bringing CERN’s experience in coordinating research on a European scale into the process of building the European Research Area. The MoU also provides for closer collaboration between CERN and Brussels across a wide range of activities. For example, one project in the next FP7 call will be in a subject area identified as important in the European Strategy for Particle Physics, agreed upon unanimously by the Council in Lisbon in 2006.

The president of Council, Torsten Åkesson and I had a very positive and productive meeting in Brussels in March with members of the European Commission. At this meeting, we identified areas for future collaboration, including accelerator and detector R&D, knowledge and technology transfer, information technology and education. For each of these areas, we have identified points of contact in Brussels and at CERN - people whose responsibility it is to drive forward the collaboration for the benefit of European science and ultimately of all of us. With those contacts in place, and goodwill on both sides, great things can happen.

Rolf Heuer

‘European’ not just in name

With the recent signature of the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), CERN’s ties with Europe have become tighter than ever. However, CERN has a long tradition in participating in European co-funded programmes in many different domains – from R&D projects for accelerators and detectors to education and outreach.

For several years, CERN has maintained a close relationship with various institutions of the European Union, namely the European Commission, Parliament, and Council, with a number of people from the Directorate, Council and different departments being involved. A very important aspect of these relations is the participation of the Laboratory in the European Framework Programmes (FP). "Currently, there are about 30 EU co-funded projects going on at CERN", says Svetlomir Stavrev, head of the EU Projects office. "This represents over 30 million euros that our Laboratory is receiving from the European Commission (EC). The projects involve about 200 people that include staff, fellows and project associates." Besides the EU Projects Office, which plays a coordination role in the process of approval and submission of the European projects, other CERN services are involved in the whole process: in particular, the Legal Service is involved in the preparation and review of all legal documents, the Knowledge and Technology Transfer group reviews the intellectual property related aspects, the Resources Planning and Control group is responsible for the financial follow-up of the projects, and the Internal Audit group handles the preparation of audit certificates. Furthermore, the Recruitment Programmes and Monitoring Service in HR is in charge of the administrative management of all Marie Curie projects.

The percentage of the EC contribution to the projects varies considerably. "For projects in the IT domain and the Marie Curie actions, the EC funding covers nearly all costs, up to 100%", explains Stavrev. "However, the funding rate can be as low as 30%. This happens in particular in some large projects for accelerator R&D, such as EuCARD. In this case, the rest of the funds is provided by the participating laboratories and institutes."

The MoU signed by Rolf Heuer, and the EU Commissioner for research will strengthen the collaboration between CERN and the EU in a number of fields. "These include research and e-infrastructures, training and mobility of researchers, international co-operation, open access, science education, technology transfer and innovation," anticipates Stavrev. "For each one of these areas, the two parties have identified contact persons who will follow up the progress made in the field. This is a significant improvement with respect to the past".

Did you know?

It was only in 2003, the start of FP6, that the European inter-governmental research organizations obtained the right to fully participate and receive funding from the EU Framework Programmes. As a consequence FP6 was the first programme that saw active collaboration between CERN and the EU, which now continues under FP7.

In 2002, CERN became a member of ‘EIROForum’ – a partnership between the seven largest intergovernmental research organizations in Europe (CERN, EFDA, EMBL, ESA, ESO, ESRF, and ILL). One of the goals of EIROForum is to facilitate the relationship with the European Union.

Message from the Office

The EU Projects Office (DG-EU) was set up between 2000 and 2001 by David Williams to coordinate relations with European Union institutions. Today the main mission of the EU Projects Office is to advise and assist CERN teams at all stages of European projects, including finding the right funding scheme, reviewing project proposals, aiding with project negotiations and supporting the project implementation. The website http://www.cern.ch/eu ("EU Projects" on the CERN Users homepage) acts as a portal to all CERN EU projects. The site also provides information on upcoming funding opportunities and CERN procedures for project submission. If you have an idea you’d like to turn into a project proposal, you can contact: mailto:eu.projects@cern.ch