UK pushes for tech transfer from Cern

The UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), together with Cern, is opening a competition this week to get businesses to collaborate with the European physics laboratory, the Financial Times reported.

Cern costs its member governments hundreds of millions of Euros each year and the UK would like to see a greater commercial return on that investment, according to the article. John Womersley, chief executive of the STFC, told the Financial Times: “We want to get technology from inside the ivory tower into the economy.” He also said that the competition should help develop the research done at Cern so that it “can impact on people’s lives.”