About CERN

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, more commonly known as CERN (from the French title of the original body, ‘Conseil Europeés pour la recherche nucléairè’) was established in the early 1950s in Geneva. Its main aim was to provide for collaboration amongst European states in nuclear research of a purely scientific nature, and it was made very clear that CERN should have no concern with work for military requirement. In 1953 there were 12 founder members of CERN and it presently has 19 member states. All the work at CERN is financed by these member states, each providing financial contributions in proportion to their net national incomes. Since its establishment, CERN has made many important discoveries, mainly in particle physics, but it is also at the centre of many technological advances, the most famous being the World-Wide Web.