Russian science remains open despite CERN’S unfriendly stance — science ministry

MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/. Russia’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education has said that it remains open to interaction with the world scientific community, stays ready to build relations on an equitable basis and does not intend to respond symmetrically to the latest actions by the Council of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which is curtailing cooperation with Russia, the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science has told TASS.
“At its 214th session, held on December 15, 2023, the CERN Council decided to discontinue CERN agreements on international cooperation with Russia upon their expiration in November 2024. We believe that this decision was taken under political pressure and will be detrimental to world science. Russia does not intend to respond symmetrically. In terms of scientific and technical cooperation, we remain open to interaction with those who are ready to build relations on an equable basis and mutual respect,” the press service said.
Earlier this week the international science magazine Nature reported that Europe’s particle physics laboratory CERN would expel hundreds of scientists who are affiliated with Russian institutions from the beginning of December this year.
According to the periodical, from December 1, Russia-affiliated scientists will no longer be able to access the CERN site, and must hand in any French or Swiss residency permits they hold. To continue research in the laboratories of the organization those wishing to will have to stop cooperation with Russian institutions and move to foreign research centers. At the same time, CERN will continue to work on projects already underway with about 270 employees of the Russian Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), who conduct experiments at the NICA collider in Dubna near Moscow.
“The skills of Russian scientists, which are in demand in the CERN project, are now being applied for creating megascience facilities in our country. The emergence of our own megascience projects opens new horizons for the development of Russian physics and interdisciplinary research. Our country plans to become a center of attraction for specialists in fundamental physics from other countries,” the Ministry of Education and Science said.
Nature magazine estimates that the decision regarding Russian scientists who contribute to independent experiments at the LHC could be painful for CERN.
“The experiments will feel the loss of Russian expertise,” Nature quotes Hannes Jung, a particle physicist at the German Electron Synchrotron in Hamburg as saying. This decision “will leave a hole,” Jung warns. The magazine notes that “Russia’s funding agencies and institutions contributed around 4.5% to the LHC experiments’ combined budget,” and “the loss of Russia’s expected contribution to the High-Luminosity LHC, a high-intensity upgrade scheduled for 2029, will cost CERN an extra $47 million.”
The LHC is the world’s most powerful charged gas particle accelerator located near Geneva, Switzerland. Involved in the work to build the accelerator and stage experiments there were 100,000 specialists from 44 countries, including Russia. Experiments at the LHC led to the discovery of more than 60 new subatomic particles, including pentaquarks, and also proved the existence of the Higgs boson, the clue to understanding the mechanism of how some other elementary particles acquire mass.
In March 2022, CERN suspended Russia’s observer status. Later, the CERN Council decided not to extend beyond 2024 the cooperation agreements with Russia and Belarus, concluded back in 1955 by the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Council voted against terminating cooperation with Russia’s JINR.