CERN can be model for global co-operation

International collaboration, even during the Cold War, has proved the worth of Europe's nuclear research organisation - writes Dr James Gillies

Angels, demons, black holes and the most ambitious scientific undertaking the world has ever known have thrust CERN into the limelight. Today, the lab is rightly recognised as a world leader in science and technology - pushing back the frontiers of knowledge and driving innovation in the process.

For almost 60 years since its foundation, CERN has been in the vanguard of humankind's quest to explore the universe we inhabit. And we are potentially on the threshold of a whole new era of understanding. In pursuing that quest, our scientists and engineers have developed new technologies where they have been needed and created the world advances - ranging from medical imaging and cancer therapy to the world-wide web.

There's another string to the organisation's bow - though, less well known, but equally important. As Europe emerged from the ashes of the Second World War, CERN was established with a dual mission: basic research and international collaboration on an equal footing. The pioneering scientists that blazed the trail for the new laboratory recognised the universal language of science as a force for peace. And in the heady days of the early 1950s, Europe's political classes shared their cause.

So, in 1954, after two years of nurturing under the auspices of UNESCO, Europe's first intergovernmental scientific organization first saw the light of day. Its statutes, enshrined in the CERN Convention were remarkably simple and equitable. The organisation was to engage in pure research, with military research expressly forbidden and new knowledge as its main product. It was to publish its results widely and openly. Its member states would all have a voice at the governing council, regardless of their relative economic clout. And the community was to be inclusive of scientists from wherever they may hail.

It is a model that works and has stood the test of time. Over the years, membership has grown from 12 to 20 member states - with a further six countries waiting in the wings. The CERN model has been emulated in other European scientific intergovernmental organisations. And through times of austerity as well as through times of plenty - Europe's leading position in basic science has been maintained because the model provides stability, value for money and a culture of mutual support between nations.

The contribution to peace has been substantial. Throughout the Cold War, scientific contact between East and West was maintained at CERN. As early as the 1960s, people and equipment started to move relatively freely between the USSR and CERN. Contacts between scientists from East and West Germany were re-established on our neutral ground. It is no accident that East Germany's national particle physics lab was among the institutions of the former communist state to be recognised as world class after reunification. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was similarly no accident that the newly independent Eastern European states cut their diplomatic teeth at CERN. Poland led the way, joining CERN in 1991 - and was soon followed by Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria.

Before CERN's current flagship research facility - the Large Hadron Collider, particle physics was a regionally–based activity - with a number of large labs around the world providing the basic infrastructure for research and opening their doors to scientists. The LHC marks a transition. It is the first major particle accelerator project to be built with contributions from beyond the host lab: the LHC includes major components from Canada, India, Japan and the USA. Nevertheless, it is still essentially a European project open to the world with the vast majority of the capital cost being provided by member states. It is probably safe to say that the LHC will be the last of its kind: any future facility on such a scale will be a truly global project from the start. To that end, CERN has opened its doors to countries from around the world, and is working closely with other labs to ensure that should such a facility be hosted outside Europe, we will have a role to play.

Today, CERN is host to scientists from more than 100 nations and it works. Particle physics is not the only field of science that is going global and science is not the only area of human endeavour that can benefit from increased cooperation between peoples and cultures. For more than half a century, the organisation has set a valuable example. The CERN model shows what can be achieved when people put differences aside to work towards a common goal.

Dr James Gillies is head of the communication group at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research