Intake of Cern fellows set to fall this year

Cern, Europe’s particle physics laboratory, is likely to reduce the number of fellows it admits to its research programme in 2019 by about 17 per cent.

Katharine Thomas-Chevreux, who coordinates the fellowship programme, told Research Europe about the fall in intake. “Normal recruitment level is approximately 120 fellows per committee, so that’s 240 per year,” she said. “However, this year I am expecting a slight drop, not more than 100 per committee.”

She linked the drop to major projects going on at the lab, near Geneva, Switzerland, including upgrades to its Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator. “They want to invest in R&D perhaps a little more than personnel.”