[7] The acronym CERN is also used to refer to the laboratory; in 2019, it had 2,660 scientific, technical, and administrative staff members, and hosted about 12,400 users from institutions in more than 70 countries.

[10] The main site at Meyrin hosts a large computing facility, which is primarily used to store and analyze data from experiments, as well as simulate events.

As researchers require remote access to these facilities, the lab has historically been a major wide area network hub.

During these early years, the council worked at the University of Copenhagen under the direction of Niels Bohr before moving to its present site near Geneva.

[16][17] The acronym was retained for the new laboratory after the provisional council was dissolved, even though the name changed to the current Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire ('European Organization for Nuclear Research') in 1954.

Edoardo Amaldi was the general secretary of CERN at its early stages when operations were still provisional, and the first Director-General (1954) was Felix Bloch.

[citation needed] At the sixth session of the CERN Council in Paris from 29 June to 1 July 1953, the convention establishing the organization was signed, subject to ratification, by 12 states.

The convention was gradually ratified by the 12 founding Member States: Belgium, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia.

They include: In September 2011, CERN attracted media attention when the OPERA Collaboration reported the detection of possibly faster-than-light neutrinos.

[40] The 1984 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer for the developments that resulted in the discoveries of the W and Z bosons.

[41] The 1992 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to CERN staff researcher Georges Charpak "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber".

[45][46][47][48] In 1995, Berners-Lee and Cailliau were jointly honoured by the Association for Computing Machinery for their contributions to the development of the World Wide Web.

[49] A copy of the first webpage, created by Berners-Lee, is still published on the World Wide Web Consortium's website as a historical document.

[71] The LHC tunnel is located 100 metres underground, in the region between Geneva International Airport and the nearby Jura mountains.

Eight experiments (CMS,[72] ATLAS,[73] LHCb,[74] MoEDAL,[75] TOTEM,[76] LHCf,[77] FASER[78] and ALICE[79]) are located along the collider; each of them studies particle collisions from a different aspect, and with different technologies.

[82] In March 2013, CERN announced that the measurements performed on the newly found particle allowed it to conclude that it was a Higgs boson.

[83] In early 2013, the LHC was deactivated for a two-year maintenance period, to strengthen the electrical connections between magnets inside the accelerator and for other upgrades.

[90] CERN, in collaboration with groups worldwide, is investigating two main concepts for future accelerators: A linear electron-positron collider with a new acceleration concept to increase the energy (CLIC) and a larger version of the LHC, a project currently named Future Circular Collider.

They have surface sites at points around them, either as the location of buildings associated with experiments or other facilities needed to operate the colliders such as cryogenic plants and access shafts.

WA22 used the Big European Bubble Chamber (BEBC) at the Meyrin (West Area) site to examine neutrino interactions.

[168][169][170][171] The European Strategy for Particle Physics, a document mandated by the CERN Council that forms the cornerstone of Europe's decision-making for the future of particle physics, was last updated in 2020 and affirmed the organisation's role within the open science landscape by stating: "The particle physics community should work with the relevant authorities to help shape the emerging consensus on open science to be adopted for publicly-funded research, and should then implement a policy of open science for the field".

In 2018, the SCOAP3 partnership represented 3,000+ libraries from 44 countries and 3 intergovernmental organizations who have worked collectively to convert research articles in high-energy physics across 11 leading journals in the discipline to open access.

CERN's efforts towards preservation and reproducible research are best represented by a suite of services addressing the entire physics analysis lifecycle, such as data, software and computing environment.

The statue, symbolizing Shiva's cosmic dance of creation and destruction, was presented by the Indian government to celebrate the research center's long association with India.

Artists across all creative disciplines have been invited to CERN to experience how fundamental science pursues the big questions about our universe.

Even before the arts programme officially started, several highly regarded artists visited the laboratory, drawn to physics and fundamental science.

[187] Mariko Mori,[188] Gianni Motti,[189] Cerith Wyn Evans,[190] John Berger[191] and Anselm Kiefer[192] are among the artists who came to CERN in the years that followed.

Each programme is designed and formed in collaboration with cultural institutions, other partner laboratories, countries, cities and artistic communities eager to connect with CERN's research, support their activities, and contribute to a global network of art and science.

More than 200 artists from 80 countries have participated in the residencies to expand their creative practices at the Laboratory, benefiting from the involvement of 400 physicists, engineers and CERN staff.