176

 

HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIXTH SESSION OF COUNCIL

18 and 19 June 2015

 

RESTRICTED SESSION

DIRECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT

The Director-General gave an oral report on the following matters:

  • Discovery of tau neutrino appearance by the OPERA collaboration
  • Inauguration of the emergency response centre on the Meyrin site
  • Inauguration of a new visitor centre on the Prévessin site
  • Winners of the 2015 “Beamline for Schools” competition

 

LHC MATTERS

The Council heard presentations by the Director for Accelerators and Technology, Dr F. Bordry, on the LHC beam commissioning, restart for physics and running schedule for 2015, and by the Director for Research and Computing, Dr S Bertolucci, on the LHC experiments and computing, and by the Director-General of the new long-term LHC schedule, including the high-luminosity and injector upgrades, and congratulated all the CERN and contractors’ personnel, users and external teams involved on the outstanding achievement of ensuring a smooth and rapid restart of the complete accelerator complex, at a new energy frontier, after the long, two-year shutdown.

 

PRESENTATION ON MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

The Council heard the presentations by Professor M. Baumann, Chair of the International Strategy Committee for Medical Applications, and Dr S. Myers, Head of CERN Medical Applications, on the growing collaboration in Europe on particle therapy applications in the biomedical field.

 

COOPERATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN CERN AND THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, LEBANON (CNRS-L) CONCERNING SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION IN HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS

The Council unanimously decided to approve the text of the mandate for legal opinions concerning the CERN Pension Fund set out in document CERN/3169/RA/Rev.

The Council unanimously approved a Cooperation Agreement between CERN and the National Council for Scientific Research, Lebanon (CNRS-L).

 

FUND RAISING – LIST OF PROPOSED PROJECTS

The Council congratulated the Director-General on the successful start-up of the CERN & Society Foundation and unanimously approved the list of projects identified for private-donor funding within the framework of the CERN & Society programme.

 

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON AUDITS (SACA) Standing Advisory Committee

The Council heard a report by Ms Jamieson, in her capacity as SACA Chair, on the issues discussed at SACA’s meeting on 4-5 June 2015 and unanimously decided to approve a series of technical amendments to the terms of reference of the Standing Advisory Committee on Audits (SACA) to enable the Committee to continue functioning smoothly pending a more in-depth review of its terms of reference, planned for the end of 2015.

 

2016 BUDGET: SCALE OF CONTRIBUTIONS

On the recommendation of the Finance Committee, the Council unanimously decided to approve the percentage scale of contributions for 2016 to be applied to the Final Budget for 2016 in 2016 prices, on the understanding that the Draft Budget for 2016 and the Medium-Term Plan for the years 2016-2020 will be submitted for approval at the September Session.

 

CLOSED SESSION

ENLARGEMENT PROCESS

ROMANIA

After hearing an oral report by Dr R. Voss, Head of International Relations, on the conclusions of the CERN-Romania Joint Committee, namely that Romania has fulfilled all obligations under its status of Candidate for Accession, in particular all financial obligations and that its participation in CERN had, in most areas, fulfilled or exceeded the expectations of 2010 when it acceded to the status of Candidate for Accession, the Council unanimously decided to  admit Romania as the Organization’s twenty-second Member State subject to the fulfilment by Romania of the customary conditions set out in the corresponding Resolution.

 

EXTENSION OF THE MANDATE OF THE EXTERNAL AUDITORS

The Council unanimously decided to extend the mandate of the Supreme Audit Office of Poland (NIK) as External Auditors of the Organization for a further period of two years, as from 1 January 2016.

 

ELECTIONS

Dr C. Cesarsky was re-elected Vice-President of Council for a third period of one year from 1 July 2015.
Dr S. Weisz was re-appointed Vice-Chair of the Pension Fund Governing Board from 21 June 2015 to 31 May 2016.

 

OPEN SESSION

ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT 2014

The Council unanimously approved the Annual Progress Report 2014, as set out in document CERN/FC/5912-CERN/3178.

 

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OF CERN

The Council unanimously approved the 2014 Financial Statements of CERN set out in document CERN/FC/5911- CERN/3177 and granted discharge to the Director-General.

 

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OF THE CERN PENSION FUND

The Council approved the 2014 Financial Statements of the CERN Pension Fund, set out in document CERN/FC/5911- CERN/3177, granted discharge to the Pension Fund Governing Board, and expressed its appreciation to Mr T. Lagrange for his work as ad interim Chief Executive Officer of the Pension Fund since December 2014.

 

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROGRAMME AT JINR

 

NEUTRINO PROGRAMME AT FERMILAB

 

DARK MATTER SEARCHES AT THE LHC

 

Finally, the Council heard informative talks by Professor V. Matveev, Director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Russian Federation) on the scientific research programme at JINR, by Dr N. Lockyer, Director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (USA) on the neutrino programme at Fermilab, and by Dr M. Mangano of CERN’s Theory group, entitled “Physics at the LHC after the Higgs discovery: what’s next?”.