Austria to Leave CERN
This marks the end of Austria's 50-year participation as one of the sponsoring nations of the organization. In the 55-year history of CERN, Austria marks only the third nation to have dropped out of CERN participation. The first was Yugoslavia in 1961, with Spain following in 1969 (though they since rejoined in 1983).
Austria's annual contribution of 17 million euros amounts to about 2% of the CERN annual budget, and that money will be diverted to close up budget shortfalls. A spokesman for the Austrian ministry of science points out that the actual funding for science by the Austrian government has, overall, increased in this year's budget ... and the government seems to feel that the 17 million euros can better be spent on other projects, including different international collaborations (largely focused on the biomedical sciences).
The withdrawal of Austria is certainly not crippling to CERN and the LHC, however if other nations follow suit it could certainly spell trouble for the institution. CERN's director-general, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, will be meeting with the Austrian leadership this upcoming week, in an effort to make the transition smooth, keep it possible for Austrian physicists to continue their work at the facility, and try to keep the rest of Europe from deciding they have better things to spend their money on.
Related Articles:
- Reuters - Austria to quit CERN particle physics laboratory
- Science Insider - Austria Breaks Up with CERN
- PhysOrg.com - Austria to pull out of European CERN Institute
- Nature - Austria to quit CERN
Comments
Austria made a good decision. Last year the British were questioning the value of further funding this project. And there are serious signs here in America of the same. The LHC is enormously expensive. But that is not the real problem. The problem is that it is delayed perpetually and with out end in sight. For those who think it will start in September think again. So it is not producing any results or any new science but it is absorbing massive amounts of money. It is time to think about funding other science projects. In France and Switzerland the LHC is a job creation tool not a science experiment. That is why some seriously suspect that the delays are not unintentional but intended to avoid the dreaded “point of diminishing returns.” Kudos for Austria. Hopefully other nations will follow suit. The LHC is not really science so Idoubt science will suffer.
The above is a plain lie — the schedule for the LHC restart is September of this year, 4 months from now.
Electric ships have no wall to plug into, so they pay a price in efficiency while burning their fuel. ,