RESOLUTION

Research without a budget = Europe without a future !

 
  • Noting that the CERN Management has submitted to the Member States for the Finance Committee meeting on 25th August 2010 a budget for 2011 and a medium-term plan (MTP) for the period 2012-2015;
  • Deploring the fact that, on the Member States’ request, this plan proposes a reduction of resources of 478 million Swiss francs over the period 2011–2015, compared to the initial proposal by the Management, which corresponded even then to the minimum needed to exploit the machines and experiments;
  • Recalling that, following a decision by Council in 1996, CERN has suffered an annual budget cut of 100 million Swiss francs;
  • Considering that this approach equates to an abandonment by the Member States of the European Union of a policy agreed upon in Barcelona in 2003 to invest 3% of their GDP in R&D by 2010, and today they can barely manage 1.85%;
  • Considering that these budget cuts imposed on CERN compromise not only the consolidation work on the injectors and infrastructures of the Laboratory, which has become indispensable since the start-up of the LHC, but also jeopardizes the preparation of the future of the Laboratory;
  • Considering that the poor response to the letter recently sent by the President of the Staff Association to the ministers concerned by CERN affairs is a sign of indifference;
  •  
The Staff Council, gathered at an ordinary meeting on 17th August 2010, has unanimously adopted the following text:

 

RESOLUTION



The CERN Staff Council:
 
  • Joins with European researchers in denouncing the decrease in research budgets in Europe, in total opposition to a public political will to safeguard them;
  • Asks for CERN and other European Laboratories of basic research to have at their disposal budgets commensurate with the complex tasks they carry out;
  • Urges our governments to invest today, which will bring innovation and job creation, and thus future growth;
  • Calls the staff representatives of the various European research laboratories, as well as the entire CERN community, to a meeting on 25th August, in order to make public and actively support these demands, thus showing their strong disapproval of this short-sighted budget policy.

by STAFF ASSOCIATION