CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, will stop working with hundreds of scientists affiliated with Russian institutions on 30 November unless they move to institutions outside the country.
This date marks the official end of the laboratory’s cooperation with the Russian Federation, following CERN’s decision to sever ties with the Russian Federation following the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
But tensions remain among researchers over CERN’s relationship with Russia, as the organisation will continue to work with Russian scientists through an agreement with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), an intergovernmental centre in Dubna, near Moscow, Nature reports.
JINR’s agreement with CERN is separate from Russia’s agreement with CERN. The decision not to cut ties with the lab has divided scientists, with some pointing to the lab’s relationship with the Russian state as it continues its war in Ukraine.
Boris Grinyov, director of the Institute for Scintillation Materials in Kharkov, Ukraine, who represents Ukraine as an associate member of the CERN Council, the organisation’s governing body, argues that allowing JINR scientists to participate in CERN projects was a “big mistake”.
Neither JINR nor the Russian Ministry of Science responded to Nature’s requests for comment. CERN’s agreement is very clear that we carry out peaceful fundamental research,’ said CERN spokesman Arnaud Marsollier.
Russia’s departure could put CERN, which was set up after the Second World War to bring nations together for “peaceful scientific pursuits”, in a difficult position.
CERN began working with the Soviet Union in 1955. Although Russia has never been a full member and its observer status has been suspended, hundreds of scientists affiliated with Russian institutions contribute to independent experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator.
