Its main profile is basic research in physics to increase our understanding of the building blocks of the universe and their operation. The largest particle physics laboratory in the world; half of all particle researchers work in CERN projects globally.

It studies subatomic particles with unique equipment: particle accelerators and detectors (accelerators greatly increase the energy of particle beams before letting them collide to each other or to fixed targets, while detectors detect and record collisions)

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is now the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

Benefits of the membership for Hungary

• Access by Hungarian researchers to internationally unique and costly large research equipment.
• Opportunities to make new discoveries in basic research in physics which can serve as the basis for subsequent developments.
• The number of Hungarian users has been steadily increasing over the past 10 years, with 60-80 Hungarian researchers participating in various CERN experiments each year, totalling 78 in 2019 (ATLAS: 7, CMS: 27, ALICE: 26, SPS: 6, ISOLDE: 3, NEUTRINO: 1, others: 8).
• 17 students attended the Technical Student Programme of the institution in the last 5 years (2015-2019).
• The volume of Hungarian industrial supplies (based on purchase orders):
  CHF 3,515,000 in 2014;
  CHF 3,597,619 in 2015;
  CHF 5,084,379 in 2016;
  CHF 7,205,488 in 2017.
  CHF 4,424,000 in 2018
  CHF 4,864,000 in 2019
• In proportion of supplies/contribution share, Hungary belongs to the “well-balanced” countries.
• The headcount of Hungarian permanent staff has increased in line with the share of membership fees, with 11 new Hungarian staff members in the last 5 years, including 3 new staff members in 2019, bringing the total to 17 persons in 2019 (0.64%), (13 researchers/engineers, 3 technicians, 1 administrator, 3 of them women).
• 99 people worked in other status (researchers, users, etc.) in 2019.
• Every year, 1-2 young Hungarian researchers are awarded a scholarship to CERN’s doctoral school, 5 in total between 2015-2019.
• Every year, 3-5 Hungarian students are accepted to the CERN Summer Student Programme (17 students in 2015-2019) and 40-50 physics teachers participate in a professional study trip.
• Until the end of 2019, the MTA Wigner Research Centre for Physics operated the CERN Tier-0 (first layer of the computing grid) computer centre.