Other International Organizations Science and Research (CERN)Science and Research (CERN)
The European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), the biggest experimental particle physics research center in the world, founded in 1954, consists of twenty member states and its main mission is to explore the most fundamental questions of Nature: What is matter? Where did it come from? How does it form stars, planets and human beings?. Currently at CERN, the largest experiment in the world is underway, ie. the Large Hadron Collider, a tunnel of 27 km in length at 100 meters below the Franco-Swiss border, which aims to shed light on the circumstances which led to the birth of the universe by recreating the conditions just after the “Big Bang”. Indeed, on 4 July 2012 a lamdmark announcement was made at CERN, namely that the "Higgs particle» (Higgs bosone), which is the cornerstone of particle physics, had been dicovered. This discovery will hopefully contribute to solve the riddle of existence of mass in matter.
As regards the structure of the Agency, the supreme decision-making body for all major scientific, technical and administrative matters is the Council, in which all member-states participate with two delegates (one political, usually the Permanent Representative of the country and one scientific). The Council has four regular sessions a year (March-June-September-December). The two subsidiary bodies of the Council are the Scientific Policy Committee and the Finance Committee. Furthermore, the Council appoints a Director-General with a five year mandate, who runs the Agency with the assistance of a well-staffed Secretariat.
Greece is one of the twelve founding members of CERN.
