TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION OF THE COUNCIL
26-27 March 2026
RESTRICTED COUNCIL
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
The President informed the Council that, since the Council’s meeting in December 2025, he had attended meetings of the European Strategy Group (ESG), the Tripartite Employment Conditions Forum (TREF) and the latter's working group, the Audit Committee (AC) and the Pension Fund Governing Board (PFGB). He had also travelled to Riga on the invitation of the Latvian delegation to meet members of the Latvian government as well as researchers and students.
DIRECTOR-GENERAL’S REPORT
The Director-General reported on the following subjects:
- Mission and challenges for the years 2026-2030
- Organisational structure since 1 January 2026
- LHC and High-Luminosity (HL) LHC highlights
- FCC timeline and organisation of the Reference Design Phase
- Recent Protocol visits
CERN’s strategy and main objectives for the period 2026-2030
The Council gave feedback to the Director-General on the proposed high-level strategy and objectives for CERN over the coming five years, a period during which the HL-LHC and the Phase 2 upgrades of ATLAS and CMS would be the Organization’s highest priorities.
PeNSION FUND
The Council heard a presentation by Dr Buzatu, in his capacity as Chair of the PFGB, on the key matters discussed at the PFGB’s meeting on 18 February 2026, the progress of the review to determine whether any actions could be envisaged to achieve full funding sooner than 2056, the latest member and beneficiary statistics, the Fund’s investment performance in 2025, namely a nominal rate of return of +6.93%, equating to a real rate of return that was
3.78 percentage points above the best-estimate target for the year, the Fund's five-year annualised nominal performance of +2.08% as at the end of 2025, and recent macroeconomic and investment market developments and the Pension Fund Management Unit’s response.
Proposal for revision of maternity and paternity / co-parent leave
The Council heard a presentation by the Director for Finance and Human Resources,
Mr Brouwer, explaining the proposed changes to the maternity and paternity/co-parent leave policy which the Management planned to submit to TREF in May 2026 and to the
Finance Committee and the Council, for recommendation and approval respectively, in June.
NON-LHC EXPERIMENTS
The Council heard a presentation by the Director for Research and Computing,
Professor Hamel de Monchenault, covering the new structure of the Research and Computing Sector, recent achievements in the non-LHC programme, including the transportation of antimatter across the CERN site by the BASE experiment, recent work at the CERN Neutrino Platform for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in the United States, results from the FASER, SND and NA62 experiments, and the activities of the Theoretical Physics Department.
LHC and HL-LHC MATTERS
The Council heard a presentation by the Director for Accelerators and Technology,
Dr Brüning, on the status of the accelerator complex and upgrades, covering the commissioning of beams throughout the complex following the short year-end technical stop, the schedule and programme for the 2026 run, the estimated performance statistics for the four LHC experiments, the preparations for the third long shutdown (LS3), due to start on 29 June, and the 47-month schedule for the installation of the HL-LHC.
The Council then heard a presentation by the Director for Research and Computing, Professor Hamel de Monchenault, on the status of the LHC experiments and computing, highlighting the wealth of high-quality results from the 2025 run, the physics programme for 2026, the ongoing preparations for the HL-LHC, progress with the Phase 2 upgrades of the ATLAS and CMS experiments, including an update on the bPOL12V DC-DC converter chips, and finally the ongoing discussions on the scope and funding models for the LHCb and ALICE Phase 2b upgrades.
European Strategy for Particle Physics
The Council heard a presentation by the Strategy Secretary, Professor Jakobs, summarising the methodology followed by the ESG in collecting input from the particle physics community in Europe and beyond for the 2026 update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics and outlining the resulting Strategy recommendations, supplemented by the information set out in the Deliberation Document.
CLOSED COUNCIL
Financial contribution of Ukraine to CERN for 2026
The Council decided to adopt a Resolution, whereby the financial contribution of Ukraine to CERN for 2026 would be waived in its entirety and the resulting shortfall would be covered by increasing the 2026 contributions of the Member States in proportion to their share of the Budget.
* * *