Ireland’s long journey to membership of Cern, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research, has reached its destination following a Cabinet decision.
It opens up opportunities for Irish companies, scientists, students and wider society to reap the benefits of working in the world’s most famous particle laboratory in Switzerland.
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) is home to the Large Hadron Collider, a huge underground ring in which protons – one of the constituent particles of an atom – are accelerated close to the speed of light and collided into one another. It was used to discover the Higgs boson, the so-called “god particle”, which gives matter mass and holds the physical fabric of the universe together.
Many technologies developed at Cern have gone on to have applications in medicine, space, energy and ICT, such as the world wide web and touch-sensitive technology in smartphones.
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“Associate membership of Cern will demonstrate Ireland’s commitment to science and reaffirm our reputation as a centre for scientific investment,” said Tánaiste Simon Harris after the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “It will create opportunities for Irish researchers, students and industry to join world-class teams at Cern, and it will give Cern access to Ireland’s talent and expertise.”
“Having personally advocated for Ireland’s associate membership of Cern for a long time, it is a pleasure to officially announce [we] will join Cern in October this year. Today’s Cabinet approval is a milestone which authorises the final legal steps,” said Minister for Science James Lawless.
University College Dublin, whose physicists have been involved in Cern research for many years, said it is to expand its particle research capacity following Ireland’s decision to become a member country.
UCD vice-president for research, innovation and impact, Prof Kate Robson Brown said: “This is a very important step for Ireland, to take our place in Europe’s largest scientific organisation, which enables collaborations with the best researchers, institutions and companies all over the world.”
Prof Ronan McNulty, UCD Particle Physics Group, who has been one of Ireland’s longest-serving scientists on Large Hadron Collider experiments said: “Today’s announcement is deeply significant both for the scientific health of our nation and the opportunities it unlocks for physics, engineering, computing and accelerators for health.
Prof Seán Cournane director of UCD Centre for Physics in Health and Medicine and principal physicist at St Vincent’s University Hospital, said Cern membership “marks an exciting opportunity for further innovation and collaborative research towards improved patient care”.
Peter Stringer head of core technology development at the Irish company SuperNode, which was headquartered at UCD as a start-up, said membership would enable Irish students and graduates “to gain valuable knowledge and experience at Cern which they can bring back to Ireland helping our knowledge base to grow”.
He received training at Cern and was among a delegation that welcomed the organisation to the university campus last year.
