Funding squeeze could mean less bang for buck

As construction of the Large Hadron Collider approaches its end, employees are hoping to hold on to their jobs Keystone

Cern, the world's largest particle physics laboratory, needs an additional SFr240 million ($200 million) to ensure its flagship project fulfils its potential, say staff.

The centre’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which has taken a decade and SFr10 billion to build outside Geneva, is due to start operations later this year.

Under Cern’s current “manpower plan”, 600 staff – almost a quarter of the 2,600-strong workforce – are due to be laid off by the end of 2010 following the end of construction.

The Cern Staff Association has mobilised against the cuts, saying they go too far and will adversely affect the LHC, which will be the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.

More than 1,740 workers have signed a petition that has been sent to Cern’s 20 member states, urging them to meet a management request for an extra SFr240 million. This would allow for the purchase of equipment and help preserve 250 positions.

The staff association says the extra resources are needed “to bring the research and development efforts back to a level which ensures the future of the laboratory and European research in high-energy physics”.

According to Gianni Deroma, the organisation’s president, Switzerland and France are ready to finance up to half the sum requested.

But he told swissinfo on Tuesday that this was conditional on other member states chipping in. No one was available for comment at the Federal Energy Office on Tuesday.

United front

Even though there is a united front at Cern on the need for extra funding, all is not sweetness and light between management and workers, who accuse bosses of backtracking on staff numbers.

Deroma said the latest version of the “manpower plan”, published at the end of last year, had seen an earlier target of 2,200 staff reduced to 2,000.

Cern spokesman James Gillies denies this is the case. He told swissinfo that at the start of the LHC project in the mid-1990s it was agreed that numbers would be reduced to 2,000 once construction was completed.

He said management had now revised its needs, hence the request for extra resources to ensure Cern reaped “maximum benefit” from the LHC. Gillies was unable to confirm the SFr240 million figure on Tuesday but said it sounded “plausible”.

“What management has put forward now is what it deems necessary to run this laboratory effectively,” he said.

swissinfo, Adam Beaumont in Geneva

In brief

Cern was founded in 1954 by 12 states, including Switzerland, and now includes 20 member states.

Around 6,500 scientists – or around half the planet’s particle physicists – from around 500 institutes and universities have access to Cern.

The World Wide Web began as a Cern project called Enquire, initiated by British computer expert Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.

Large Hadron Collider

The LHC is housed in a 27-kilometre tunnel beneath the French-Swiss border near Geneva and is the world’s largest and most complex scientific instrument.

The LHC will smash protons at almost the speed of light, recreating conditions a fraction of a second after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.