23 Jun 2025
CERN welcomes Slovenia as its 25th Member State
On 21 June 2025, the Slovenian Minister of Education, Science and Sport, Dr Maja Makovec Brenčič, together with CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti signed the agreement admitting the Republic of Slovenia to Associate Membership in the pre-stage to Membership of CERN.
Slovenian physicists contributed to the CERN programme long before Slovenia became an independent state in 1991. In recent years, Slovenian physicists have been participating in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Currently, Slovenia is heavily involved in projects to upgrade the ATLAS detector for the High-Luminosity LHC, especially the upgrade of the beam conditions monitor and the silicon strip part of the inner tracker, as well as the novel High-Granularity Timing Detector.
As a CERN Member State, Slovenia will have voting rights in the CERN Council, the Organisation’s highest decision-making authority. Membership will also enhance opportunities for Slovenian nationals to be recruited by CERN and for Slovenian industry to bid for CERN contracts.
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